Members from organisation Better Buses for South Yorkshire rallied outside the Mayoral Combined Authorities’ offices this week hoping for improved bus services.
During the rally, South Yorkshire’s Mayor, Oliver Coppard, thanked them for their campaign work over the past few years.
He said: “Better Buses for South Yorkshire and myself are in exactly the same place in the sense that we both want to make sure buses are better in South Yorkshire, the clue is in the title.
“Ultimately, right now, the way that the bus system works in South Yorkshire is broken, it doesn’t work effectively for the passengers, it really doesn’t work effectively for anybody. So what we need to do is get to a place where we do have a public transport system worthy of its name.”
Better Buses for South Yorkshire, BBSY, formed in 2020 and has since been arguing for public control of buses, and an end to the current privatised system.
Martin Mayer, 70, from Healing, a retired union convenor for South Yorkshire buses, said: “We’ve lost so many services altogether, others have been cut back in their frequency, particularly Sundays and evening services, they are nothing like they used to be.
“There is so much late running and irregularity. We’ve got less than half the number of passengers travelling on our buses now than we did 30 years ago.”
By taking services into ownership, the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) aims to improve the punctuality, reliability, consistency of standards and accessibility of bus services.
From Friday 22 March, SYMCA will also take ownership over South Yorkshire’s Supertram, where they are exploring renewal, improvement and even extension of the network.
Fran Postlethwaite, 72, from Barnsley, a member of BBSY, said: “We meet people who, for example, have got hospital appointments, and the only way they can get there on time is to book a taxi, which costs them a lot of money.
“You get people who can’t apply for jobs in particular areas because they don’t have transport and the bus services can’t get them to work on time, there are thousands and thousands of people out there in that situation.”
South Yorkshire are moving through the franchising process quicker than anybody else in the country, and this week they received approval to move on to the public audit stage of franchising.
