Mayor Andy Burnham wants city region to be first in UK to use London-style powers

Greater Manchester could become the first city region in the UK to take back control of its buses after a report recommended refranchising its vast and fragmented network.

The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he hoped to use the powers to build a London-style integrated transport system that puts passengers’ needs before the interests of private bus companies.

His vision, called Our Network – a nod to the Mancunian habit of calling a sibling “our kid” – will include the largest public bike hire scheme per head in the UK, including electric bikes, and will start rolling out next spring. Our Pass will launch on 1 July, offering free bus travel for the region’s 16- to 18-year-olds.

Burnham has been preparing for a battle with some of the 42 bus companies that compete for business in Greater Manchester, which has a population of 2.8 million people.

Private operators including Stagecoach and First are currently able to cherrypick the most profitable routes and set their own timetables, leaving large swathes of the region, and often the poorest, without regular services. It frequently costs £4 to go 5 miles – a journey that would be £1.50 in London – and services do not connect with other modes of transport.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) spends £27.1m a year subsidising about 20% of the region’s bus services, which run at times of day and in areas where there is a social need.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andy Burnham: ‘We can’t carry on this way.’ Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Passenger numbers have plunged since the service was privatised in 1986, with the number of annual journeys falling by 45% from 355m then to 195m in last year.

“Many of those people have migrated to the car, as we see from the congestion,” said Burnham. In London, bus use almost doubled in the same period, rising from 1.2bn in 1986 to 2.2bn in 2018, he said.

“We can’t carry on this way,” Burnham said. “That’s why Greater Manchester is the first city region seeking to make use of the new powers under the Bus Services Act 2017 and the first to test this legislation – so is leading the way nationally in this regard.”

The ability to take back buses into public control was given to mayoral authorities by the government in 2017. Though an assessment by TfGM has recommended refranchising as Burnham’s best option, its report must be independently audited before going out to a statutory public consultation, during which the bus companies are expected to fight their corner hard, warning of higher fares and council tax bills.

Talking at the Home arts centre in Manchester on Monday, Burnham called for an end to the region’s “confusing and fragmented” system. “At the moment our transport system isn’t sufficiently accountable to the public. We own part of it but not all of it … we need to bring this system into one framework of accountability so that people can hold me to account about what is happening in their city region.”

Greater Manchester controls its tram service, Metrolink, which will expand to Trafford Park and the Trafford Centre next year, with 27 new trams entering operation.

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“We need to stop building for the car,” said Burnham, who has appointed the former racing cyclist Chris Boardman as the region’s cycling and walking commissioner.

Boardman said he was looking for an operator to run a Greater Manchester-wide bike hire programme, with the aim of it being “the largest public bike hire scheme per resident of its kind in the UK” within 10 years.

Last year, a private bike hire operator, Mobike, pulled out of the city due to theft and vandalism of its fleet. Boardman said he hoped his scheme would avoid that fate by making users return bikes to docks, like the Santander bikes in London.

The rollout would begin next year in Manchester and Salford centres. “We want to get it established in the centres first,” Boardman said. “We don’t want another Mobike, discovering problems as we go.”

He said electric bikes would almost inevitably be included “in the lumpier areas”.

Boardman has begun to build the Bee Network, 1,800 miles of safe cycling and walking routes, but has so far received just £160m of the £1.5bn cost.

“The money has got to be found and it has got to be committed,” he said. “£1.5bn sounds a lot because it is spaced over 10 years, but in transport terms, it’s not a lot at all. There is a junction in Bedfordshire, the Black Cat Junction, which is going to be remodelled at a cost of £1.4bn – just one junction.”

Stagecoach accused Burnham of providing no evidence to support his claim that franchising was better than a partnership approach and failing to mention “the massive bill they would have to pay for a London-style bus system”.

A spokesman said: “The mayor has had on his desk for months a compelling £100m blueprint from bus operators which could further transform the region’s bus network right now. It would deliver better services, new greener buses, better value fares and a way forward to address car congestion and air quality.

“People … must be asking why Transport for Greater Manchester has needlessly spent £23m of taxpayers’ money on consultants’ reports assessing franchising, when practical improvements have been delayed and the partnership solutions are already staring politicians in the face.”