The government announced in 2023 that it was providing funding to bus companies to cap single fares on the overwhelming majority of bus routes to £2. This scheme was extended a few times with the most recent announcement being in November 2023 promising that the cap would extend until the end of 2024.
However, there have been some rumblings within the bus industry with some operators claiming that the money obtained from government is not sufficient to offset the fare income that they are foregoing by applying the £2 cap. In Cornwall, it is further complicated by the fact that the Bus Fares Pilot was already providing an element of subsidy to bus fares administered by Cornwall Council and the monies for the £2 cap took account of the money that the operators were already getting from the Fares Pilot. At some point, the money from the Fares Pilot will run out and it is not clear what will happen to bus fares when that happens and whether the £2 cap is sustainable until the end of 2024.
I asked a question at the Full Council meeting of Cornwall Council on 16 April as follows:
"Is Cornwall Council confident that all the bus companies operating in Cornwall will continue to offer the £2 maximum single fare through until the end of 2024?”
The reply from Richard Williams-Pears, portfolio holder for Transport, was as follows;
"Bus Operators in Cornwall have signed up to the Bus Fare Cap Grant (BFCG), which caps single fares at £2, since it was introduced in January 2023, and have continued their voluntary participation in this scheme. This national initiative is negotiated directly by the Department for Transport with Bus Operators across the UK. There is no indication at this point that Operators would exit the scheme before it ends on the 31 of December of 2024.”
“No indication at this point” does not sound like complete confidence that the scheme will continue through to the end of the year. If the bus companies demand more money to continue with the scheme, who is going to pay for it - Cornwall Council whose budgets are so precarious, or the Department for Transport under a Conservative government who almost certainly think that most of their MPs will be out of a job by the end of the year?
Watch this space!
Update
17 April 2024
Since I posted the above story, it has been brought to my attention that the Stagecoach South West website says, in regard to the £2 cap, "We are participating in the scheme until at least the end of June 2024.” That would appear to me to be an indication that they might not be continuing until the end of the year. Or, more likely, they will demand more money from somebody (CC or DfT) to continue until the end of December.
Stagecoach South West operate in Cornwall on the busy Plymouth-Saltash route and in the north of the county to Bude.