Leaders on Liverpool City Region CA have voted unanimously to move ahead with plans to bring the region’s bus network back under public control.
However, its mayor Steve Rotheram (Lab) has told LGC he is “not confident” his combined authority will not have the same legal issues faced by Greater Manchester when they tried to become the first area to adopt the model. Greater Manchester has a judicial review still pending from bus companies Stagecoach and Rotala over its £134.5m bus franchising proposals, which the companies argue is ‘unlawful’ in relying on an assessment of the ‘cataclysmic’ impact of Covid-19.
The cost of the Liverpool City Region scheme depends on whether the combined authority rolls out a new bus fleet and also takes control of the region’s bus depots, but Mr Rotheram told LGC it could end up costing “way in excess of £150m”.
In a meeting on Friday, leaders voted to confirm franchising as the region’s preferred future model for running the bus network and services, which would reverse the industry’s deregulation in the mid 1980s.
Under the plans, buses would better integrate with other modes of transport like the region’s new fleet of publicly-owned trains and a ‘tap-and-go’ ticketing system would be introduced with a cap on daily fares.
Several mayoral combined authorities have expressed an interest in adopting bus franchising since the Bus Services Act 2017 made this possible. But Mr Rotheram believes they have been held back by the “sheer impenetrability of some of this legislation”. “You have to be so careful,” he said. “Because if you get anything wrong, then you will be judicially reviewed. That’s why it’s been so painstakingly long for us to get it right, because I don’t want to go through a legal process.”
Mr Rotheram told LGC he has had letters from Stagecoach saying they will abide by the decision that the combined authority has made and “accept that franchise is a workable model”. “If they stick to their word, that will save us the time effort and the money of having to go through a legal process. But I don’t know, we’ll see when the final decision is taken later this year.
“I’m not confident we won’t have the same issues [as Greater Manchester],” he added.
The recently published devolution framework plans to expand the freedom to introduce bus franchising to areas with non-mayoral devolution deals.