Leeds City Council: Support public control of our buses

On Monday morning, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority will decide the future of our bus services.

We depend on our local busses to get around. But fares are far too high, and tickets options are confusing.

During the month of April, whilst the pandemic reduced bus services to 15% of normal levels, local councils were forced to pay out £4.31million to private bus companies in subsidies for tickets that weren’t being used (according to WYCA public figures).

What’s more, local councils do not have a real say in how or where bus routes are operated. Since 2014, privately run routes in West Yorkshire have been cut by 10 million miles!

Private companies can do what they like with our buses. It’s a wild west free market.

This is not right. Our council taxes should not be used to put profit before passengers.

Our bus system is fundamentally broken and things need to change.