Promise to keep buses private

Oldham-based First, Greater Manchester’s biggest bus company, will be protected from any take-over by local councils if the Tories win the next election, they have pledged.

The new Local Transport Act would allow Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (GMITA) to force through “quality contracts” with the company which would give councillors the right to set fares and timetables.

It is a power which Blackley Labour MP Graham Stringer — who helped steer the bill through parliament and believes the buses should be re-regulated — has been urging them to take up.

But at the Conservative’s party conference in Manchester, shadow transport minister Stephen Hammond promised to scrap that part of the act.

“I absolutely believe that it is co-operation, not conflict that we need in buses,” he said. But he also promised the councils help in avoiding the cost and chaos caused by the fact that companies are obliged only to give 56-days notice to the traffic commissioner of changing their routes.

“Passenger networks can easily by destabilised. There is clearly a very good case for changing the 56-day rule.”

Nicola Shaw, First’s UK Bus managing director defended the privatised bus industry. She said: “80 per cent of the country’s bus passengers are satisfied with what they get, more so outside London.”