Bus franchising to cost an estimated £5m as Barnsley council to support formal assessment

The cost has been assessed after Barnsley Council stated they would consider supporting franchising ‘once the financial implications became clearer’.

A report to Barnsley Council’s cabinet, to be discussed at heir meeting next week, states that £5m is the ‘initial desktop estimate’, which would be utilised by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) over a four-year period.

Campaigners have called for buses across South Yorkshire to be franchised, so decisions about routes, timetables, and prices are ‘made in the interests of the public, not shareholders’.

A report to the SYMCA states that if the board agrees to begin a formal assessment of a proposed franchising scheme, the £5m cost will need to be ‘underwritten from reserves’, which would ‘reduce the MCA’s financial resilience in the context of known risks and pressures that are likely to crystallise in the new financial year’.

However, although this finding model would not have an immediate impact on Barnsley Council’s finances, the cabinet report states that the ‘possibility of a request for funding support from the council is not entirely ruled out at this stage’.

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Councillor Sir Steve Houghton, leader of Barnsley Council, told a meeting of the SYMCA on January 24 that he would like the Mayoral Combined Authority, local MPs and other South Yorkshire councils, to write to ministers urging them to continue to provide financial support for public transport due to the likely ‘catastrophic consequences’ of ending the Covid subsidy at the end of March.

Sir Steve told the meeting that franchising is a ‘very lengthy process’, which could take up to seven years to be fully implemented, and added that ‘public expectations around this are huge’.

The report to Barnsley’s cabinet looks at the costs of franchising for Transport for Greater Manchester, and noted that £1.78m was sought from each of their 10 constituent authorities.

It states: “Any increase in contributions from the council to support franchising activities would naturally draw finite resources away from other priority areas, causing pressure elsewhere in council budgets.

“This is particularly pertinent at a time when there is widespread uncertainty around local government finance and increasing pressures emerging around for example social care provision.

“Further work will be required to determine infrastructure implications. The timing of the proposal is clearly not ideal given current market volatilities and the fact that bus patronage along with the financial sustainability of operations has been in decline for several years.”

The report outlined ‘several significant challenges’ faced by bus services, including the potential ending of government support for Covid-related cash shortfalls; uncertainty over post-Covid passenger numbers; cost pressures facing bus services such as rising fuel and wages; and ‘sustainability pressure on service provision, noting that local operators are currently expressing their intent to begin rationalising existing services’.

Barnsley Council’s cabinet is expected to recommend at the next full council meeting that the council as a whole support the SYMCA’s proposal to issue the notice of intention to prepare a formal assessment of a proposed franchising scheme.

Cabinet will also ask that the council is granted the opportunity to ‘influence and shape what the assessment considers’, and reserves the council’s right to ‘formally withdraw from the process at any stage if appropriate funding solutions cannot be found’.