South Yorkshire’s Mayor, Oliver Coppard, and South Yorkshire leaders will consider the independent review of the Bus Franchising Assessment and decide whether to progress to the next stage of the process, a 12-week public consultation on the proposed franchising scheme.
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00:00Hi everyone, thanks for joining us. Today's a really big day in the journey
00:04to better public transport in South Yorkshire. When I was a kid growing up
00:08here in Sheffield I had a world-class public transport system bus service at
00:15my disposal. 2P buses, buses as far as the eye could see, buses that connected
00:20people up with opportunity and since the changes that were introduced in the
00:241980s to how buses were managed, that service, that bus network has gone into
00:30a spiral of decline. Bus service is getting worse so fewer people get the
00:33bus, so bus services get worse and so on. A public consultation now. Talk to us
00:40about why that's so important in this sort of process. Well it's really
00:43important that people have their say about how public transport works. One of
00:46the things that we've lost through the process of bus reforms over the last 30
00:50or 40 years since I was a kid is people's control, their input, their say
00:56over how buses and public transport works, not just here in South Yorkshire
00:59but right across most of the country and we want to bring back that sense of
01:02community, that sense of public input, that sense of public control. So that's
01:06what the consultation is about, letting people have their say about what's wrong
01:09with our buses and what people want to see us doing differently in South
01:13Yorkshire like they've already done in Greater Manchester. And what's wrong with
01:16buses in South Yorkshire that you feel this is a step to take and take them
01:20back into public transport? When I was growing up in South Yorkshire we had buses as far as the eye
01:24could see, I had 2P bus fares and buses that connected up people with
01:28opportunity to get to school, to work, to see friends or family or anything else
01:31besides and so but surely we've gone into that spiral of decline where bus
01:35services get worse, so fewer people get the bus, so bus services get worse and
01:39quite honestly we have to turn the tide on how that system keeps people out of
01:43opportunity. So people will now get that opportunity to have their say about what
01:48they think is wrong, not just what I think is wrong, but what they think is
01:50wrong with our buses and how we can fix it, whether public control of our buses
01:54like they've done in Greater Manchester, the system we used to have, is the best
01:57way forward. And what kind of financial commitment does public control of buses include?
02:01Well it means that ultimately we will be responsible for those buses. At the
02:06moment what happens is the public sector, what happens at the
02:10moment is that those private companies like Stagecoach and First and others,
02:13they take all the profitable routes and they take the money from those
02:16profitable routes and that goes into their pockets. And under a publicly
02:20controlled system the way that that works is you take the money from those
02:23profitable routes and you subsidise those routes that otherwise wouldn't be
02:26profitable. At the moment as taxpayers we just pay for those routes, we subsidise
02:30most of those routes ourselves, so actually we've got to get to a better
02:32system or we could get to a better system through this process, that's what
02:36that's what public control means.
02:38So it's kind of hoping that it will fund itself in the long run?
02:41Yeah look, we hope that that will then fund itself over time, we want more
02:44people to get on the bus of course regardless of what happens next, we need
02:47more people to use public transport to have that opportunity to get
02:51where they want to go, when they want to be there, to have that freedom and choice
02:54using public transport to get to opportunity and that's what this is all
02:58about. Myself, the leaders of the local authorities in South Yorkshire have
03:01undertaken an assessment and I'm pleased to say that that assessment recommended
03:05that bus franchising, so-called public control of our buses, was determined to
03:10be the best way forward for South Yorkshire's public transport system.
03:13That's the road they've already gone down in Greater Manchester and it's the
03:16route that was recommended through that assessment process here in South
03:19Yorkshire and today leaders and I have agreed that we will now move to the
03:24public consultation part of that process. We want communities in South Yorkshire to
03:29have their say about how buses should be run in South Yorkshire and whether that
03:33public control, the system we used to have in South Yorkshire, is the right way
03:37forward for us again, if we can go back to the future. So from October the 23rd
03:42we will be launching a 12-week consultation process and I would ask
03:46everybody from South Yorkshire who relies on buses, who wants to rely on the
03:50buses, who thinks that public transport needs to be better, gets involved in that
03:55process and tells us what they think about how that network should be run and
03:59the changes they want to see. So please do get involved. We will publicise those
04:03consultation processes, let everybody know how to get involved. It will be on
04:07our website and everywhere else besides but please do have your say. This is a
04:11big day for South Yorkshire, potentially a big step forward for South Yorkshire's
04:14public transport system but it only works if people have their say. I will
04:18then move to take, once I've heard from everybody across South Yorkshire and
04:21taken into account all of those views, I will then take a decision early
04:25next year about the way forward for our buses. So thank you for coming
04:29today and I'm happy to take questions.