PTE could be formed in the west, as franchising explored

Mayor of West of England Combined Authority, Dan Norris, has said he would like to set up a passenger transport executive (PTE) in his region.

The Mayor announced this in a response to a campaign group’s letter imploring Mr Norris to introduce bus franchising in the West of England. He noted in the response that a lack of a PTE is one of factors holding back changing the bus provision model in the region.

“It is something I would like to set up,” the Mayor said, referring to a PTE. “As a result of this complex picture, I make no apology of taking the utmost care when considering the strengths and weaknesses of any new model for how we run buses.”

The open letter to Mayor Dan Norris came from Reclaim our Buses West of England, a movement urging the franchising of buses. The letter called for a ‘formal investigation’ of bus franchising in the West of England.

The campaign group’s letter said: “To enable franchising, we would support the West of England Combined Authority to have precepting powers (the way the police and crime commissioner can raise funds as an add on to council tax), which would provide stable funding for key bus services without affecting other essential local government budgets.”

Dan also mentioned in his reply that franchising is ‘not a silver bullet’ and not ‘public ownership per se’.