Opposition councillors are lobbying to keep a £2 bus fare, with the government due to lift the national cap to £3 in the new year.
Green opposition leader Steve Davis plans to bring a motion to a council meeting this week, with support from the Brighton and Hove Independents as well as his own party.
Councillor Davis wants the council to meet bus company bosses to discuss how to keep the £2 bus fare cap – at the lowest possible cost to the public purse.
And he wants a report to explores potential funding streams to support the subsidy including the Carbon Neutral Fund and the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP).
Last month, Brighton and Hove City Council announced that short bus journeys would be capped at £1 from Sunday 1 December until the end of next month.
The move followed a government announcement in October that the national fare cap would go up to £3 from the new year.
Metropolitan mayors in Manchester and Liverpool have committed to keeping the £2 fare – and Councillor Davis wants to know how much it would cost to do the same in Brighton and Hove.
He is also calling on Labour council leader Bella Sankey to write to the government expressing the council’s disappointment at the end of the £2 cap and asking ministers to reverse the decision.
Councillor Davis said that the £2 fare cap had significant benefits, “making public transport more accessible and affordable for many, especially those on lower incomes”.
He said: “Accessible and affordable public transport is vital to achieving the city’s carbon neutrality goals by 2030 and encouraging sustainable travel behaviours.
“The removal of the cap is likely to disproportionately impact residents from poorer backgrounds, exacerbating social inequalities.
“The removal of the £2 bus cap is likely to reduce the total of number of people travelling by bus, having an impact on the income of local bus companies.
“Ultimately the responsibility of funding the £2 bus cap in the long term should lie with the national government.”
Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Mark Earthey, who is expected to second motion, said that he wanted to bus fares to be as low as possible without coming out of the council’s budget.
Councillor Earthey, who represents Rottingdean and West Saltdean, said: “The last thing we want is for the city to be choked with even more cars.
“From a selfish point of view, the A259 runs through our ward, so we would rather have full buses than even bigger queues of cars at our ward’s major junctions.
“However, we are keener that national government picks up the tab, not the council. We have been given to understand that the cost to the council of maintaining the £2 cap would be around £14 million per year.
“This would have to be taken from frontline services – a move which the Brighton and Hove Independent group finds totally unacceptable.”
The full council meeting is due to start at 4.30pm on Thursday (19 December) at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Yet more nonsense from someone who hasn’t got a clue.
The bus in Brighton is £5 a day. Because a £2 cap means only 2 singles so the moment you need to use a 3rd bus you’d be spending £6 making the day ticket cheaper.
Instead of blowing tax income on this, it would be better spent on a better bus service, i.e extending the 28/29 into Hove
I agree with Dave here, ensuring the saver tickets offer good value for money and remain competitive is a strong idea.
Sorry when is Brighton “choked” with cars? All I see is slowdowns where the council has put improvements in place. Traffic levels are reflected in the downturn in parking revenue as the anti motorist practice and gouging has become well known. If you commute to work on the bus you probably have a weekly or longer pass. If you are one of the unfortunates who drove in you have a car. The only people who benefit are the infrequent travellers who live here. Older people get a bus pass. Perhaps the money would be better spent offering free bus passes to under 18s ?
Kingsway, A27, and Old Shoreham Road, are a few off the top of my head.
I’d rather they spend £14 of transport income on subsidising bus fare for tens of thousands a day than pointless cycle lane improvements and traffic flow schemes that benefit so few.
Me too, I’d even give them it myself, however, the amount has a few extra zeros in it, and is a bit out of pocket for me.
But in seriousness, common sense active travel solutions and public transport make sense, but for me, I would be interested in seeing a tighter control and focus on a utilitarianism approach; main routes only, and peak times, to be more cost effective.
And mainly where the council has reduced car and other traffic to single lanes with bus and/or cycle lanes. Just wait for VG3 🤔
£14 m a year?
That’s an awful lot of cash when the budget is already tight.
At least the 2 independents say they won’t support cuts in other services.
And the Tories haven’t done any work on telling us which part of the budget they could cut to implement this. And that is the hard part.
Here is the motion
https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s204269/Joint%20GG%20BHI%20NoM%20Keep%20the%202%20Bus%20Fare%20Cap.pdf
the Tories don’t need to say how to fund as they are not part of this! This is a Green/independent motion to a Labour-led council caused by a decision of the Labour government. It’s interesting that the council Tories haven’t joined the greens/independents for the motion.
My view on how funded – from the parking levies. The council already makes more money than any other council outside London on this – far more than we should do based on our population. It is legal to spend this on transport funding and subsidising buses is just this. We could, for example, cancel VG3 and all the costs over many years and that would pay much of this.
I’m not convinced would cost as much as £14m a year as cheaper to buy a day ticket if you do 3 or more journeys, but even at this level with parking income/fines around double that level there should be a way to pay within current transport income….
So apologies I got the parties mixed up but the point is the same – they haven’t come up with a funding mechanism.
Could some of the parking surplus be used?
Possibly but that depends on the legislation that permits the use of parking surplus income – it’s earmarked and can only be used for certain things. And spending it on fare subsidies means it can’t be spent on other things.
“The removal of the £2 bus cap is likely to reduce the total of number of people travelling by bus, having an impact on the income of local bus companies.”
This is interesting because Brighton and Hove buses have continued to report excellent profits – just over £16m this year (despite massive investment in new buses in order to meet government targets). They get paid full fare for every journey made with Brighton and Hove council or central government paying up to cover all concessions. Other large bus companies fund police posts dedicated to keeping their buses safe but not in Brighton and Hove. Whereas other bus companies have massive community involvement programmes Brighton and Hove buses donate small pots of money and free bus travel to local charities and community groups – but only twice a year and the sums of money are miniscule compared to other travel organisations.
Brighton and Hove buses is owned by the Go-Ahead Group which is itself jointly owned by Australian and Spanish transport companies. They also own Govia Thameslink which you may remember was the merging of Southern and Thameslink Railways effectively ending all competition on the very lucrative rail route from London to Brighton. Talking of competition (or the lack thereof) the only competition to Brighton and Hove buses is the Big Yellow bus company run by Tom Druitt who founded and owned the company until 2015 but remains in charge. A large number of Big Yellow’s routes are entirely paid for by Brighton and Hove council (as are a number of Brighton and Hove Buses routes).
Recent changes in legislation allow for more competition on local bus services. I would like to see Brighton and Hove Buses virtual monopoly ended, or alternatively be required to contribute more to local projects. Instead of £16 a year winging it’s way to Australia and Spain – perhaps they could be required to fund some fare subsidies themselves, contribute to policing their routes, contribute properly to local projects or initiate a local charity fund generally for the benefit of local people.