Campaigners calls on South Yorkshire politcal leaders to take over failed bus firm Powell’s

Powell’s Bus Company, which stopped running 19 services across South Yorkshire earlier this month, has prompted over 500 emails to the region’s leaders.

The move comes as South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard confirmed at a public event that he had started investigating taking Powell’s into public ownership.

Emails sent by campaigners argue that a publicly owned and run bus company could ‘plug the gaps’ and provide a ‘guaranteed minimum service level’, no matter what the private bus companies decide to cut next.

South Yorkshire would not be the first local authority to buy up a bus company after Pembrokeshire Council bought a small operator earlier this year.

Matthew Topham, a campaigner at Better Buses for South Yorkshire, said: “For decades, we’ve been privatising the profits on South Yorkshire’s buses and nationalising the losses.

“The network is in freefall. If the public is expected to stump up another five or ten million to slow the cuts, it’s time that we own at least some of the buses and run them on a not-for-profit basis for the benefits of our communities, not unaccountable shareholders.”

SYMCA is currently investigating the process of back into public control through franchising.

Calls have been made that political leaders are not moving fast enough.

But Doncaster mayor Ros Jones said the process needs to go through a proper process.

“There is a legal process that we must follow,” she said.

“If we were to try and rush it through then the chances are something could be missed which could be a major risk of legal challenge from the bus operators.

“Currently, bus operators decide on the routes, decide on the timetables and the fares and now during these tough times, it is the combined authority and in essence, the taxpayer picking up the bill after decades of profits to private bus operators when that money should have been re-invested into the transport network.

“What we need is for the government to come forward with funding for bus services, it is supposed to be a key part of the Levelling Up agenda. Regions should see a London-style transport system, this could not be further from the truth in South Yorkshire.”