Over the last year the Better Buses for Strathclyde campaign has had some big wins.
We’ve succeeded in pushing our regional transport authority – SPT – to take forward new powers to bring our bus network back into public control (through ‘franchising’) and to set up a new publicly-owned operator for Strathclyde as part of the new Strathclyde Regional Bus Strategy.
The next phase of the campaign is at the Scottish Parliament – to demand that the Scottish Government supports SPT to use these powers, and helps to simplify and accelerate the process.
Please help by signing and sharing our new Scottish Parliament petition.
To find out more, please read our written evidence submitted on 11 October 2024 in response to the Scottish Government’s rather pathetic initial response to the petition.
Our second piece of written evidence was submitted on 12 November 2024, in advance of the petition getting its first hearing at the Citizen Participation & Public Petitions Committee on Wednesday 27 November 2024, 11am. The process looks set to continue over the next year.
Net Zero, Energy & Transport Committee
Alongside our petition, we have also been running a parallel campaign at the Scottish Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy & Transport Committee (NZET) to demand MSPs begin the process of simplifying the bus franchising powers to make them easier and cheaper for transport authorities to use.
To find out more, please read our written evidence submitted to the NZET Committee, alongside the other brilliant responses below, which set out just how complex and time-consuming the Scottish legislation is compared to England and Wales.
