Bus entrepreneur Julian Peddle offered his own bleak and controversial assessment of the National Bus Strategy for England at a meeting last week

 
Prime minister Boris Johnson at the launch of Bus Back Better in March

 
The National Bus Strategy for England is flawed and “will all end in tears”, bus entrepreneur Julian Peddle warned last week.

Addressing the Young Bus Managers Network in the latest of its ‘Lunchtime Sessions’, Peddle offered his personal assessment of the strategy, Bus Back Better. He referred to the strategy, which is championed by the prime minister, as “Boris in Wonderland”.

“It sounds very nice,” he said. “It’s got lots of wonderful things in it. Who could quibble with any of the wonderful things in it? But one of the problems is, is it practical? Can we do all these things in 18 months? … I don’t know what funding for instance my business is going to get from the end of August.”

Peddle joined the bus industry 49 years ago as a bus conductor in 1972 and bought his first bus company in 1983. He remains an investor and controller of four bus companies in the Midlands, with a combined fleet of 375. He argued that the strategy’s biggest flaw is that it is short term. He believes that it is focussed on achieving a quick political dividend rather than driving long and sustained growth for local bus services.

A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term aim, and this strategy runs over three years. Well, three years in transport is a very short term aim, very short indeed

“A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term aim, and this strategy runs over three years,” he said. “Well, three years in transport is a very short term aim, very short indeed. I mean one of the problems in this country is that because parliaments last generally five years or less, governments have been unwilling to invest in a strategy.”

He continued: “Railways have always known for many years ahead what their funding envelope is going to be … Buses have always been second fiddle or third fiddle because politicians don’t travel on them.”

Speculating on why the prime minister himself is championing Bus Back Better, Peddle suggested that buses were perhaps seen as a transport mode where changes could be delivered quickly – especially in former ‘red wall’ constituencies that turned blue at the 2019 general election. But his experience had taught him that achieving growth can take time.

“Between 1997 and 2006 I owned and ran the buses in Milton Keynes,” Peddle recalled. “When I bought the business in 1997 I can confidently say it was one of the worst bus services in the country, but with a partnership between ourselves and the local authority we managed to double patronage over nine years … Not easy, but one of the things that I would point out is that for the first four years passenger numbers hardly budged.

“We managed 20% in the first four years, with the remaining 80% in the second five years because it takes a long time to get people to actually believe you are going to improve the buses. And you need to get political buy-in for that, because if you don’t get political buy-in it’s a waste of time.”

Three years is an instant in transport. If you look at the places that have succeeded, you will know about Brighton, Oxford, Nottingham – they have been doing this for 20-30 years

He later added: “Transport funding needs to be 10 years or plus. Three years is an instant in transport. If you look at the places that have succeeded, you will know about Brighton, Oxford, Nottingham – they have been doing this for 20-30 years. London has been doing it for a long time. You can’t just change political views. Just because you put more buses on the public doesn’t just use them, they have got to have confidence to change their mode.”

The previous week’s ‘Lunchtime Sessions’ meeting had featured a presentation by Pete Bond, director of integrated services at Transport for the West Midlands. Peddle predicted that areas like the West Midlands would rise to the challenge of producing ambitious Bus Service Improvement Plans by the end of October, but others would fail.

“It was fascinating to listen to Pete Bond, who has clearly got a plan for the West Midlands and he’s been implementing that for the last few years and he will no doubt continue. If I was running the strategy I’d give him £1bn [for his strategy] because he is somebody who knows what he’s doing and he has an operator who also has a pretty good idea what it’s going to do and is willing to invest.

“It’s not going to be the same throughout the country. Most local authorities are under-resourced. Transport is not a priority and buses are not popular.”

An additional £3bn is available over the current parliament to support the implementation of the strategy, but Peddle has doubts. “Does the £3bn exist? … It’s not been signed off by the Treasury yet,” he warned. “Various bits have already been spent. 4,000 electric buses is £1.5bn. I am now told yesterday that the next funding package for the industry, between September and April next year, is going to come out of that £3bn. So it’s an ever-changing picture, and not a good picture.”

Peddle suggested that additional funding to mitigate the impact of Covid might be required for some time. “It’s quite clear the bus passengers are not going to return to levels pre-Covid,” he said. “The good routes will … We’ve got routes with 80-85% passenger numbers, but we’ve got lots of secondary routes and tenders where it’s 40-50%, and they are never ever going to be back to 100%. So how is all that going to be funded? Nobody knows. I don’t think the local authorities or the government have even really thought about that yet.

“So we are all in limbo and you can’t sort out the long term till you sort out the short term, which hasn’t really been thought about. And it keeps being kicked down the road. No doubt we will get some short-term package. But we can’t plan. I can’t plan. I haven’t got a clue what to do next. So we just bumble along. And bumbling along in transport is not a good idea.”

He added: “We all need certainty before we invest. Uncertainty is the worst thing. Even if we were told we weren’t getting any funding from September, it wouldn’t be a good message but at least we could do something.”

I’d love to be more positive about Bus Back Better but there are so many flaws in it that I fear it will lead to a number of disjointed initiatives and will achieve little … I’m afraid it will all end in tears from what I see at the moment

Summarising his thoughts on the strategy, Peddle said: “I see the bus strategy as a way to control the industry. It’s a bit like franchising. Franchising is nationalisation without compensation, strategy is controlling the industry without paying for it, so I don’t see a good result. And I’d love to be more positive about Bus Back Better but there are so many flaws in it that I fear it will lead to a number of disjointed initiatives and will achieve little. And the industry and local authorities will get blamed for a lack of vision and delivery, and funding will be cut further. I’m afraid it will all end in tears from what I see at the moment.”

It might not sound like it but Peddle is upbeat about the future. “I am always optimistic about the bus industry because, somebody’s got to run the buses and I’m sure there are some very talented people that are hopefully listening to me who will want to carry on and do a good job in the future. There will be buses, however much politicians make a hash of them … It’s always an industry I’ve enjoyed and I’m sure will provide a good living for people in the future and I shall keep my business going and I’m sure opportunities will come along. One of the reasons we have survived is to spot opportunities.”

Meanwhile, despite his bleak assessment of England’s bus strategy, Peddle urged young bus managers not to defect to other sectors. “Please don’t leave the bus industry. We need clever young people. All industries need them but the bus industry is so desperate, so don’t go away.”

 
‘Funding has got to be right,’ warns Bond

The government must not underestimate the challenge of mixing Covid recovery with stretching targets for the bus sector, Pete Bond, director of integrated services at Transport for the West Midlands, has warned. Addressing the Young Bus Managers Network earlier this month, Bond called for funding to be maintained.

We really want to be on this bus, we don’t want to be thrown under it before we even get going

“The funding has got to be right otherwise [Local Transport Authorities] are just being handed an impossible task and operators will be forced to simply right-size their businesses for the available cash rather than realising the opportunity that sits in front of us,” warned Bond. “We really want to be on this bus, we don’t want to be thrown under it before we even get going. That would set us back years, put the strategy on a shelf somewhere – and when something is as good as this it doesn’t need to be on a shelf, it needs to be alive, it needs to be listened to and it needs to be brought to reality.”

Meanwhile, Bond hopes that giving local authorities a lead role in developing Bus Service Improvement Plans will build support among councillors for pro-bus measures. “This should be something that could really reconnect one of big disconnects that happened back in 1985 [with bus deregulation], and that was actually the disconnect between elected members and what essentially is required to support good buses and good bus priority.”

 
PEDDLE’S VIEWS

The ‘Big Five’:

“The Big Five, who control 75-80% of the bus network, none of them are in a good place. Their finances have been ravaged by the pandemic.”

“I am sure that two of the big players won’t be there in three years’ time, and quite what replaces them I have no idea.”

Rural buses:

“[The government has] just wasted £20m on Dial-a-Rides all over the country. They will run for three or four years and then stop because they will all lose a fortune.”

“I see no future for the rural bus. The best thing the government can do is sit down with somebody like Uber and decide how you can give every granny in a rural area an app that will get them an Uber at a sensible price.”

Franchising in Manchester:

“I have run buses in Manchester on five different occasions since 1982 … Manchester has always been top of the awkward squad … Everything has been politically based and that’s exactly what they are doing with franchising. It’s not going to benefit the passenger.”

“Have the existing bus companies in Manchester caused franchising? Yes they have. Their performance over the last 20 years has frankly been lamentable and I don’t blame Manchester for going down the franchising road.”

Local authorities:

“I’ve got three or four who are frankly not interested in buses and I don’t have a problem with that. At least we know where we are. The worst ones are those who say they are interested in buses but actually are incredibly negative about anything you want to do.”

 
This article appears alongside further coverage in the latest issue of Passenger Transport.

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