Buses are the most popular form of public transport in our country. They are an essential part of our national transport system, in both urban and rural areas, playing a vital part in levelling up.
In his speech on 4 October 2023, the Prime Minister announced, from the savings made by cancelling HS2 phase 2, that we will channel additional funding into better buses across the North and the Midlands.
Today, I am pleased to announce £150 million new funding for local transport authorities in the North and the Midlands over the next financial year. This is the first tranche of £1 billion in new funding to improve bus services: £770 million for the North and nearly £230 million for the Midlands. This funding is in addition to the £1.1 billion for Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) announced in 2022 and 2023, and the £300 million to protect and enhance bus services through Bus Service Operators Grant plus (BSOG+) and Bus Service Improvement Plan plus (BSIP+) announced in May.
The £150 million committed today is from redirected HS2 funding, part of our new £36 billion Network North plan which will improve the daily transport connections that matter most to people, benefitting more people, in more places, more quickly.
We are giving this funding directly to local authorities, so that they can work in partnership with bus operators to decide how best to use it to deliver better services that meet the needs of each local area. This new funding can be used to reintroduce evening services to support the night-time economy, cheaper fares through ticket price caps, increase service frequency meaning less waiting time for passengers, or introduce new routes to connect previously unconnected areas. We estimate that the £150 million we are confirming today is enough to support up to 25 million miles of new bus services.
