£804m vision to upgrade North East buses plunged into more doubt as government asks for 'pause'

An £804m vision to radically improve the North East’s bus networks – and build a new bus station in Alnwick – has been plunged into even more doubt.
Alnwick bus station.Alnwick bus station.
Alnwick bus station.

The region’s leaders unveiled a hugely ambitious bid last October to make a string of upgrades that would include cheaper fares, low-emission buses, and single-ticket travel over bus, Metro, rail, and ferry throughout Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, and County Durham.

It was part of a new Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), a new ‘enhanced partnership’ between local councils and bus operators, which it was thought would give the North East access to share of a £3bn levelling up fund for bus services.

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But whatever hopes local transport chiefs held of their masterplan becoming a reality now look likely to be dashed.

Council leaders were told on Wednesday that the government has requested a pause in the BSIP’s progress due to funding uncertainties.

It had previously emerged in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget last autumn that the true amount of money on the table for bus transformation deals was in fact only £1.2bn – meaning the North East had unwittingly drawn up a bid for two-thirds of all the money available for all parts of England.

While the £804m plan is not being rewritten or scaled back at this point, leaders will have to decide which projects to go ahead with and which ones to abandon once the Department for Transport (DfT) eventually confirms exactly how much funding is on offer.

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The news comes as yet another hammer blow to the region’s public transport, with catastrophic cuts expected to local bus services and routes over the coming months due to ministers’ withdrawal of Covid bailout funding.

Transport North East managing director Tobyn Hughes confirmed the halt in progress on Wednesday, saying that “the instructions we are getting from the DfT seem to be changing quite regularly, so it is a little less than clear at this point.”

He told the North East Joint Transport Committee: “We need to see how much money the government will make available. We are advised that will be known to us before the end of February.”

The ambitious proposals include:

A single ticket that would allow unlimited travel across all bus, Metro, and ferry services in Tyne and Wear, County Durham, and Northumberland, plus rail services between Sunderland, Newcastle, the Metrocentre and Blaydon. The multi-modal ticket could be capped at between £4 and £6.80 daily depending how far across the region you travel. It would be available to either pre-purchase as a physical ticket or could be automatically calculated as passengers travel using a contactless bank card, pay as you go smartcard, or mobile app;

Cheaper tickets for under-19s, with a £1.20 fare for single tickets and a £2.50 region-wide multi-modal fare cap;

A trial of free bus travel for under-12s during summer 2022;

A pledge for all buses in the region to be either zero-emission or the highest emission standard for conventional buses by March 2025, plus a trial of hydrogen-powered buses;

All buses to be fitted with charging points and wifi as standard;

Upgraded stations and shelters, with more real-time service updates and improved CCTV and lighting;

More early morning, evening, and overnight services, and improved access to the most rural areas of County Durham and Northumberland;

New “Superbus” corridors giving maximum priority to buses on the busiest routes in and out of city centres and to five new “major” out-of-town Park and Ride sites;

New bus stations will be delivered in Durham, Alnwick, Bishop Auckland and an additional Newcastle city centre bus station.