Franchise funding

[Rodney259]

RE: Franchise funding

(10/07/2025 18:24)knutstransport Wrote:  There may have been some foreign ownership I wasn't aware of. However, the thing I didn't get from your post is franchising introduced one new big operator to the area - Metroline, and it kicked out another of the big operators - Arriva. The others were already there.

Franchising has meant the big operators can't reject a route in their area because it doesn't make them enough money. For example, D&G used to send 2 buses up from Macclesfield to run a Stockport-Marple service, rather than TfGM being able to tell Stagecoach you have the Stockport depot - get on with running this service.


What's National Express got to do with Bee Network? Why not mention Rotala, as they have Bee Network franchises (and got awarded routes small operators like Vision used to have)?

To me it just reads like you want to have a foreign ownership of UK registered businesses rant, rather than want to make any meaningful points about the bus operations.

I was just making the point that the proportion of the total income of the £390m income since franchising £207m came from the taxpayers both Nationally and Manchester. Labour have made a great show of how buses are back in public ownership', services are much better and this is a model for Merseyside, West and South Yorkshire, West Midlands, Tyneside etc. However, apart these observations are mainly untrue and a vast amount of money appears to have been spent on yellow paint. Given that, under the previous model funding was considerably less and cross subsidies were illegal it isn't surprising there had been a relatively slight improvement in services. Given the complete mess Labour are in with public finances I'm surprised they considered removing winter fuel allowance from all pensioners and PIP payments when that's can afford to throw money at conurbation bus services and saying that this is the best thing since sliced bread. Clearly the truth is somewhat different. Spending some of the £1bn n the decimated rural bus services I personally think would have benefitted those communities more than Mancunians who had a reasonable transport system anyway.
Concerning the ownership of the franchisees, apart from a few scraps allotted to First and Diamond, it is the Germans, Spanish, Australians and Singaporeans who are benefitting from tax payers money.