West Yorkshire Mayor warns £2 maximum bus fares are at risk due to ‘chaos’ at Westminster

Mayor Brabin said West Yorkshire Combined Authority is still waiting for £70m promised by Government to fund the scheme.

She told councillors in Wakefield: "This Government couldn't care two hoots about what happens in the North."

Maximum £2 fares were introduced for all single bus journeys across West Yorkshire in September this year.

The money was promised in April and will be used to support the region’s Bus Service Improvement Plan.Mayor Brabin has already decided more than half the funding, £37m, should be used to subsidise bus fares and the rest will be spent on upgrading the bus network, to make services more frequent and reliable.

Mayor Brabin told councillors: “We still haven’t got the money from Government, let me say. So the £2 fare is currently at risk.

“We are waiting for Government to give us that money directly.

“I have been reassured that there is no problem.

“But the chaos, the churn, the mayhem, the drama in Westminster is holding regions like ours back.

“They don’t share our ambitions. I’m doing everything in my power to get to that point.”

Much of the Mayor’s 90-minute question and answer session with councillors was dominated by questions about the public transport.

David Dagger, Labour councillor for Normanton, asked about the progress she had made on her pledge to bring buses in West Yorkshire back into public ownership.

She said: “In the first week that I became your Mayor I signed the paperwork to start that process.

“It is a huge legal process. We have to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’.

“You will have seen in Manchester that Mayor (Andy) Burnham had a judicial review and conflict with the bus operators.

“We don’t want to be in that position.

“We want to make sure that we have done everything appropriately.”

Tom Gordon, Lib Dem councillor for Knottingley, said: “Everyone in this room and beyond would be inclined to agree that the buses aren’t working.”

Coun Gordon asked Mayor Brabin what more she could do to ensure that the region has a transport network that is “fit for the future.”

She replied: “It’s what I’ve staked my political capital on. I’m a bus user. I want a better bus service.

“I know that so many people in West Yorkshire don’t have a car.

“They rely on the bus network.

“When there was the strike in Wakefield, my inbox was full from people who thought they were going to lose their job, their child wasn’t going to get to school, they couldn’t get to college. I know how vital it is.

“It is not on my gift when we have bus companies that cynically increase the lowest fare in the same week as we bring in £2 fares.

Mayor Brabin added: “It is so difficult when you have bus companies coming into your office with a list of 42 different routes that they are going to cut and you in are then in negotiations to reduce that to 11, or 20, instead of 42.

“I don’t think the public necessarily see that.

“But this is our challenge.

“It is not a challenge that is just the bus operators’ problem.

“It is a Government problem because it is not funded correctly.

“This model doesn’t work. It is letting down the people of our communities. It is letting down the north.

“It is a perfect example of how this Government couldn’t care two hoots about what happens in the north.

“If you are happy to write a letter from the good people of Wakefield to Government, to tell them to meet me to discuss the buses, then I am happy to do it.”

Mayor Brabin said is she due to meet the transport minister on November 22 and the issue is “high on her agenda.”