Responding to £1bn in funding which the government says will deliver a London-style bus service across England [1], co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer MP, said:
“It is encouraging to hear that councils will be empowered to take control of bus services. Tory deregulation of services was a green light for axing routes, running down services and a focus only on those routes which generated a profit.
“It is also right that funding be based on need. However, the idea that Labour’s £1bn will mean a London style bus service arriving to all corners of the country is questionable.
“Also, increasing the single bus fare by 50% while freezing fuel duty definitely wasn’t the ticket. Keeping the £2 bus fare cap in England would have cost just a tenth of the money the government squandered by freezing fuel duty [2]. And too often bus reliability is affected by traffic, so we will need some bold moves on bus priority so buses can actually turn up when they are meant to.”
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