The Greater Manchester Combined Authority were told differently - https://democracy.greatermanchester...etwork - Bus Fares Fleet Depots and CRSTS.pdfManchester is not receiving any money for the national £2 fare cap for buses which don't cross the Greater Manchester border as they already had a £2 cap in place.
That £137 million figure is not "so far". It covers the first 5 years of franchising, with the fare cap accounting for between a third and a half of that.
Franchising, so far, is far from perfect, but, so far, seems to be better that before, fairly clearly in the first area.
From page 5 of the linked report to the authority, it is clear the £134.5m is just "transition" to franchising, on top of £86m for buying depots, then we have buying the buses, the fare costs, and the ongoing subsidy (which are not mentioned in that document).
QUOTE:-
The acquisition and capital financing / depreciation costs of the bus depots to support Bus Franchising, will be funded from a combination of the approved capital budgets, of c£86m, and the approved revenue budgets, of c£134.5 million, associated with the transition to bus franchising
Given Burnham barely managed to get in last time with a turn out of less than 35% (he got 473,000 votes out of an electorate of over 2 million, albeit the Tories barely managed 137,000!) I doubt most people care one way or the other. I also doubt most people know what deregulation was, or what franchising is either.The Tory mayoral candidate was very anti franchising and sounds like she would love to dismantle it. Which I am sure would go down well with the bus companies. But anyway if anyone hates the Bee Network that much, there's options.
But the mood from Labour and the Tories at Westminster is moving to franchising more widely. I can't see this being reversed, can't see the enthusiasm from the general public to reverse it. Key thing is to make sure it does work that there are visible improvements over time.
But also Franhcising was never sold on having "visible improvements". Pretty consistently the argument for Franchising was always "bus usage fell in England and Wales since 1986, but in London it didn't, so it must be deregulation must be the reason"
If bus passenger miles do not consistently and significantly increase each year, without requiring new funding, and at a higher rate than any increases in deregulated markers, then Bus Franchising is a failure. "AkShUalLy bus numbers would have gone up but changing demographics / government funding cuts / congested roads / real-bus-franchising-hasn't-been-tried" will not be an acceptable excuse. We will see.
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