South Yorkshire buses: £11m for 27 electric buses to cut death toll in polluted towns

Twenty seven electric buses will be rolled out by private operators in South Yorkshire in spring after the region landed £11m from the taxpayer.

Some 23 will be based at Stagecoach’s Rawmarsh depot in Rotherham and run by Stagecoach. The 22x and 221 will serve the Dearne Valley across Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster.

Contractor EO has been given £2.5m to install 23 chargers and two mobile workshop chargers at the depot.

A further four electric buses will serve Sheffield, but an operator has not yet been signed.

The £11m investment includes £8.35m from the Department for Transport and £2.68m from South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority's Sustainable Transport Settlement, provided by Government.

South Yorkshire Mayor, Oliver Coppard, said: "Around 200,000 people in South Yorkshire live in areas vulnerable to air pollution, and one in 20 deaths are related to poor air quality. That’s a challenge we simply have to address, and why we need to get cleaner, greener vehicles of all sorts on our roads.

"To meet that goal we’ve funded electric bus projects that are underway across the region as part of the Zebra1 project and we also have a second bid for ‘Zebra 2’ funding submitted to the Department for Transport with Stagecoach and First.

"Not only will they help improve public transport in South Yorkshire, they’ll make a real contribution to us hitting our net zero goals, and making South Yorkshire’s air cleaner."

Zebra refers to Zero Emission Bus Regional Area funding from the Department for Transport in partnership with South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority and Stagecoach.

Stagecoach Yorkshire managing director Matt Kitchin said the work at Rawmarsh "marks a huge step towards the future of sustainable travel in South Yorkshire as we await the arrival of the new buses".

He added: "Sustainable forms of public transport are key to reducing congestion and improving air quality across the region and we look forward to these state-of-the-art vehicles encouraging more people to make the switch to bus travel as well as making local air cleaner for all our futures."