Morebus and Yellow Buses officials discuss funding end

As reported, government funding to help bus operators emerge from the pandemic is due to end in April – however more funding will be made available to some local authorities as part of the £3 billion Bus Back Better scheme.

Managing director of Morebus, Andrew Wickham, said prior to the outbreak of the Omicron variant, they were seeing a sustained recovery in bus users. He told the Echo: “The new variant set that back but, as the country returns to normal, we’ve seen some good recovery in the last few weeks – with overall passenger numbers around 80 percent of pre-Covid levels.”

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Yellow Buses’ commercial director Simon Newport, however, says the number is much less.

He said: “The latest round of funding suggested that passenger numbers will have returned to around 85 per cent of pre-pandemic numbers by the end of March. The effect of the further stay at home directive ahead of Christmas following the rise of Omicron means that, unfortunately, is not the cases and most bus companies are running at around 60 per cent of this number.

“This leaves a substantial funding gap.”

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BCP Council has submitted application to benefit from the Bus Back Better funding, with Mr Newport also saying many operators may “have to cope without funding” for the foreseeable.

He said: “The big unknown is what is going to happen from April. Bus operators across England are making the decision that they are going to have to cope without funding and are therefore cutting their network accordingly.

“As a result, Yellow Buses have been working closely with our council partners to ensure the bus network can be maintained once funding announcements have been made by the Department for Transport.”

Despite the concerns, Mr Wickham of Morebus said he was “very grateful” to all the help the company has received and that he was confident the operator would recover.

He said: “This support has allowed us to continue with our full network, without any service cuts, with the exception of our night buses. At present, this support is due to come to an end which would result in some services being withdrawn or scaled back.

“We are asking for some support to continue for a further 12 months, which is enough time for demand to stabilise.

“With this additional period of support, we are confident that most if not all services will recover to a point where no, or only limited change, will be needed.”

The Local Government Association and trade body CPT are predicting a 30 per cent cut in bus mileage from April in order to try and balance the books assuming no additional funding is granted.