Birmingham City Council vote to ‘take back control’ of buses

Calls have been made to end cancellations, delays, and unsafe conditions on buses by bringing them into public control. Birmingham City councillors want local authorities to determine which bus routes run and when, as well as other key decisions like the cost of fares.

Speaking at a full council meeting yesterday (June 13) Lib Dems Zaker Choudhry (South Yardley) and Colin Green (Sheldon) pressed the chamber to support their motion for the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) to “take back control” of the bus network. Coun Green said: “Buses are too infrequent, don’t interconnect well and are not reliable enough.

“They don’t go from where you are to where you want to go. Too often I hear stories of people being late for work because a bus didn’t turn up or was so late they missed their connection.

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“If we are to fix bus services, dare I say it, we need to ‘take back control’?” Seconding the motion, Coun Choudhry said bus journeys were declining with 320 million in 2010 decreasing to 260 million in 2018.

He added that users were turned off by “cigarette-stubbed chairs, graffitied windows, and gum on [seats]” and antisocial behaviours like smoking and swearing. Both denounced “long”, “unreliable”, and “infrequent” services and insisted that they discourage car drivers from using greener options citing some commutes by bus which can be two-to-three times as long as by car.

The WMCA is currently assessing if it should take over the running of the buses from private companies by shifting to a ‘bus franchising’ model where the authority makes the decisions while bus companies operate services. Birmingham Labour want this process accelerated, proposing that it should be “expedited” and the WMCA should “implement franchising as soon as possible”.