South Yorkshire bus campaigners sound alarm to warn of more service cuts and call for public control

Bus operators are predicted to announce further cuts around February 17, ahead of the Government withdrawing post-Covid recovery funding on April 3. Funding has already been extended for six months.

Operators blamed falling passenger numbers and rising costs when 45 South Yorkshire bus routes were axed last October.

Activists from Better Buses for South Yorkshire are gathering at 9am on Monday to target a South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority meeting taking place at 10am in Broad Street West to call on the leaders of South Yorkshire’s councils to get on board with Mayor Oliver Coppard’s plans to bring the bus network back under public control.

Matthew Topham, a campaigner at Better Buses for South Yorkshire, said: “Last year brought home the depth of South Yorkshire’s bus crisis. Passengers are in dismay over the tripling of cancelled services, over the cuts to 50 entire routes, and over recent fare hikes.

‘Frankly terrifying’

“If operators are planning to axe more services, it’s frankly terrifying. For communities already isolated and struggling with bills, more cuts could be a death knell.

“How are you meant to get to job interviews? How can you get to school, the hospital or the shops? Our regional economy could be devastated.

“That’s why it’s so important that the region’s council leaders get on board with the mayor’s plans to bring buses into public control: a first step to the world-class buses we deserve.”

Jenny Carpenter, a bus user and climate activist based in Banner Cross, said: “There is a general dissatisfaction among the travelling public with both the unreliability and infrequency of bus services.

“Both in Doncaster and in Sheffield we have had people queuing up to sign our petition calling on the Mayor to speed up the franchising process en route to public control.

“It is time the South Yorkshire council leaders all recognised this as a mandate.”

The passenger group has collected more than 2,600 signatures on a petition calling for buses to come into public control. Find out more at www.megaphone.org.uk/p/BetterBusesSY

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