LAST week, the campaign group Better Buses for Strathclyde presented a petition of almost 10,000 signatures to the doorstep of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT).

The top line: our region’s bus services are failing and should be 'taken back into public control'.
The argument is services be re-regulated across West Scotland – including all of Inverclyde – with routes based upon need rather than the profits of shareholders.

These aren’t farfetched aspirations from wacky activists. Polling shows widespread support for this measure and I’m struck by the sheer breadth of groups to have lent their support to the campaign: trade unions, students, pensioner groups, environmental lobbyists, health charities, the list goes on.

I of course don’t for one second believe SPT are oblivious to the challenges facing our bus network.

As Alan Moir, SPT’s Vice-Chair, put it: “We all recognise [bus services] have been in serious decline over a number of years.”

They know the present model is broken. But they also know progressing genuine reform will require the Scottish Government to finally step up and provide the funding streams necessary to make public ownership a reality.

Most Tele readers will of course be aware how we got to this point. Margaret Thatcher broke up Scotland’s publicly owned bus companies in the 1980s and opened services up to competition.
She wanted to 'lower fares' and encourage 'new services and more passengers'.

We’ve seen the opposite. Between 1995 and 2020, fares in Scotland rose around 58 per cent in real terms. Between 1987 and 2020, the number of passenger journeys plummeted by 43 per cent.
Little has been done to reverse this trend and in the South West and Strathclyde alone, passenger numbers have dropped by a staggering 58 per cent since the SNP took power in 2007.

We’ve seen private operators make sweeping cuts to local services across Inverclyde in recent months, with SPT sometimes required to step in as an operator of last resort.

These are operators which receive hundreds of millions of pounds a year in taxpayers’ money. There’s no doubt the trend in declining journeys, which accelerated during the pandemic, is affecting revenue.

Nevertheless, based on operator statistics, the Better Buses for Strathclyde campaign estimate around 10 per cent of public subsidy is leaking out to shareholders in dividends annually.  

This isn’t an acceptable way to run public services.

Since the law was updated in 2019, local authorities and transport partnerships now have the power to set up municipal bus companies or regional franchises.

This could enable Strathclyde to follow the example of the likes of Labour-run Greater Manchester, where the network is now publicly owned, fares are capped and integration with other transport links is being explored.

Regrettably, the Scottish Government’s funding streams still incentivise regressive 'private-public partnerships'. That must end.

This month, proposed reforms will be brought to SPT’s partnership meeting, with a public consultation on recommendation options to follow.

It’s time for funding and resources to be put in place so we can build a public bus network fit for the 21st century.