Bucks Council downplays possibility of controlling bus services due to huge costs

City regions like London and Manchester are more suited to the model than rural Buckinghamshire, the council’s cabinet member for transport Steven Broadbent argued.

He told a meeting of the transport, environment and climate change select committee: “All the areas that have been able to make strides into this space have done so with quite a lot of upfront funding for full franchising.”

Under a franchised bus model, private companies still own and operate buses, while local authorities control routes, timetables, fares and standards.

Councillor Broadbent said franchising buses would mean the council acquiring depots and maintaining vehicles and would bring a ‘whole sweep of operational responsibilities, challenges and costs’.

Councillor Greg Smith told the meeting there was greater satisfaction with franchised buses and therefore ‘greater use’ of services, as well as ‘better accountability’ and a ‘more integrated’ public transport network.

The Green councillor said he was ‘surprised’ therefore that Councillor Broadbent had ‘dismissed the franchising idea out of hand’.

He said: “Because the objective here, presumably, is to get people off of the roads onto buses and onto a service that they can find reliable, which certainly isn’t the case at the moment.”

Councillor Broadbent said his comments had been ‘misinterpreted’ and that the council would ‘look at all options on the table’, while noting the Department for Transport accepts franchising may not be appropriate in every area.