Join us on Wednesday 21 July for the launch of Philip Alston’s new report examining the devastating impact of bus privatisation across the UK (full recording now available below).
Since the 1980s, the UK Government has imposed an extreme form of deregulation and privatisation in the bus sectors of England, Scotland and Wales, which has delivered a public transport system that is expensive, unreliable, fragmented and dysfunctional, denying residents access to crucial services and rights.
This new research, undertaken by Alston and his team at the New York University School of Law, builds on the findings from his official visit to the UK as UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty & Human Rights in 2018 – writing then that “abandoning people to the private market in relation to services that affect every dimension of their basic well-being, without guaranteeing their access to minimum standards, is incompatible with human rights requirements.”
The report finds that people have lost jobs, missed medical appointments, been forced out of education, sacrificed food and utilities, and been cut off from friends and family because of an expensive and inadequate privatised service that has failed them. Private bus operators have prioritised profits and dividends, while cutting thousands of routes. Fares have skyrocketed and ridership has plummeted. And that the UK Government’s National Bus Strategy for England, and the Scottish Government’s Bus Partnership Fund will do little to address this crisis.
This free public meeting is a unique opportunity to hear Philip Alston and his team speak about the findings of the report.
You will also find out more about the local grassroots campaigns based across the UK, fighting back by demanding public ownership and control over our bus network, and what can be done in the short- and medium-term to make this a reality.
