Sheffield buses: Oliver Coppard excited to work with Louise Haigh to improve South Yorkshire services
South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard has said he is “looking forward” to working with Sheffield MP and Transport Secretary Louise Haigh to ‘move fast and fix things’ with the region’s public transport.
The comments come after Ms Haigh visited Greater Manchester’s ‘Bee Network’ last week to discuss how it could be replicated across the country with Andy Burnham.
Mayor Coppard said: “Right now, our bus services are suffering from decades of underinvestment. That’s not just a disaster for our economy, or our environment, it’s denying opportunities to people right across our communities.
“That’s why I have always been committed to radically improving our public transport network working as quickly as possible through the franchising assessment process; because ultimately if we want people to stay near and go far in South Yorkshire, we need a better public transport system.
“Lou Haigh’s announcement shows that she is committed to supporting local leaders to fix our buses and help unlock the opportunities that better transport connectivity can bring.
“I look forward to working with her and the government to take every opportunity they can create to accelerate our work to build a world class, fully integrated public transport system connecting our buses, trams, trains, and active travel routes which will form the bedrock of the bigger and better economy we’re creating in South Yorkshire.”
Louise Haigh met with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham on Thursday, July 11, to discuss how his office had successfully taken regions buses back into public control.
The ‘Bee Network’ has seen passenger numbers grow five per cent in the first area to be franchised, with revenues following suit.
In a video shared by the Department for Transport, Mr Burnham said: “Honestly, the services now are clearly better than the ones they replaced.”
Ms Haigh has made no secret her desire to replicate the system across the country.
In the same video, she said: “I have told my office we have a new motto and that’s to ‘move fast and fix things’ and we know that buses are broken over lots of the country.
“Too many people can’t rely on them, but they are the most commonly used form of public transport. It’s particularly people from poorer backgrounds, people who don’t have a car and older people who rely on them the most.”
Earlier this year, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority took over control of Sheffield’s Supertram network after the contract with Stagecoach ended.
In an interview with The Star in 2022, shortly after the takeover of Supertram was announced, Mayor Coppard said he would like the region’s buses to follow suit and his office were undertaking the lengthy process to reach that decision.