£804m vision to upgrade North East buses plunged into more doubt as government asks for 'pause'
The region’s leaders unveiled a hugely ambitious bid last October to make a string of upgrades that would include cheaper fares, low-emission buses, and single-ticket travel over bus, Metro, rail, and ferry throughout Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, and County Durham.
It was part of a new Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), a new ‘enhanced partnership’ between local councils and bus operators, which it was thought would give the North East access to share of a £3bn levelling up fund for bus services.
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Hide AdBut whatever hopes local transport chiefs held of their masterplan becoming a reality now look likely to be dashed.
Council leaders were told on Wednesday that the government has requested a pause in the BSIP’s progress due to funding uncertainties.
It had previously emerged in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget last autumn that the true amount of money on the table for bus transformation deals was in fact only £1.2bn – meaning the North East had unwittingly drawn up a bid for two-thirds of all the money available for all parts of England.
While the £804m plan is not being rewritten or scaled back at this point, leaders will have to decide which projects to go ahead with and which ones to abandon once the Department for Transport (DfT) eventually confirms exactly how much funding is on offer.
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Hide AdThe news comes as yet another hammer blow to the region’s public transport, with catastrophic cuts expected to local bus services and routes over the coming months due to ministers’ withdrawal of Covid bailout funding.
Transport North East managing director Tobyn Hughes confirmed the halt in progress on Wednesday, saying that “the instructions we are getting from the DfT seem to be changing quite regularly, so it is a little less than clear at this point.”
He told the North East Joint Transport Committee: “We need to see how much money the government will make available. We are advised that will be known to us before the end of February.”