Sheffield buses: South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority looked at taking over failed bus company Powell’s
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During a Q&A session at an event held in the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield to celebrate Mayor Coppard’s first 100 days in office, Sheffield Trades Council secretary and former bus worker Martin Mayer asked about the collapse of Powell’s.
The company suspended all operations on August 5, throwing 260 staff in South and West Yorkshire out of work and hitting 24 bus routes in South Yorkshire.
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Hide AdMartin Mayer said: “You do have the powers to purchase a bus company. Will you actually be considering (running) Powell’s as an operator of last resort?”
Mayor Coppard replied: “Yes. There are all sorts of reasons why that is difficult, there are financial implications.”
He said other problems relate to how many drivers and buses would be available and what has happened with the firm, which he did not think was in administration yet.
The mayor has been talking to other bus operators about taking on the routes, many of which go into deprived areas.
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Hide AdStagecoach had already agreed to take some over when Powell’s originally said it intended to stop running services in October.
“We will investigate anything that makes the public transport system better,” said Mayor Coppard. “It operates in a fairly brutal market.”
He said he wants to see “the public transport system that South Yorkshire used to have when I was a kid – we know that loss was an absolute tragedy.
“We had a world-class public transport system and should do once again.”
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Hide AdHe also said later that most lost routes should now be covered by other operators – and that had to be done using public money.
The mayor said that on his first day in office he responded to the Government’s own ambition that South Yorkshire should have a world-class public transport system by writing to the Prime Minister on how they could work to achieve that.
He has never received a response, he said.
The mayoral authority has also begun the process of franchising bus services, to bring them more under public control. However, that could take up to three years.