Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

[CUL 73V]

RE: Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising
The reality is that in order to put this into practice, it's going to cost money the city region cannot afford. Start up costs would require a £341 million loan, with associated interest payments estimated at £140 million. Additional capital will also have to be borrowed to purchase depots and fleets from operators. Estimated interest payments for this loan are £150 million. When you add all of those figures up, we're looking at close to a billion pounds to implement bus franchising in the Liverpool City Region. This simply isn't a worthwhile investment whichever way you look at it. Cheaper fares won't happen, nor will less profitable services be reinstated because that money will need to be paid back within a reasonable time period. A significant increase in ridership would be required, which franchising isn't going to achieve. There's no incentive for car drivers to leave their car at home and use the bus instead.

Public control will not solve the major issues bus transport in this region faces, the biggest of these being the people in charge telling us they can run the region's buses better than Arriva, Stagecoach, et al. They can't, because they can't even devise a tendered route network properly and have made the city centre harder to travel across by bus. Merseytravel has wasted obscene amounts of taxpayer money on vanity projects with absolutely no accountability whatsoever. How on earth are these the right officials and organisations to run all of the region's buses?

Some of us would rather consider whether this is a worthwhile investment while public services in this region are sub standard. I'm happy to pay more taxes for improving healthcare, education and having decent roads, but not for what will inevitably be a badly mismanaged financial basket case. In this case, the political ideology of public ownership is not the answer, nor will it ever be.