Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

(25/06/2023 08:11)Barney Wrote:  You seem to overlooked a few key points here:

1. The legislation for bus franchising was introduced by a Conservative government with the 2017 Buses Act.
2. The examples you have cited as failed operators (Halton and Warrington) were/are in fact arms length operations meaning that the local councils have to compete commercially with competitors.
3. The franchising model gives a single operator a monopoly on specific routes thus reducing overall costs by eradicating wasteful and unnecessary competition.
4. Warrington has just relocated to a brand new state-of -the-art depot is and is about to replace its entire fleet of 105+ buses with EVs, all at the taxpayers' expense.
5. Fares will be lower under franchising.

On point 5 is that really the case if you are also paying via your Taxes?