Louise Haigh MP, Shadow Transport Secretary has warned that the Conservatives are asleep at the wheel as hundreds of bus services face axe, without certainty over vital funding.

Today (Tuesday 7 February) Labour will warn that there are “just ten days to act” before operators are forced to begin slashing bus routes across the country.

With the Government’s Bus Recovery Grant set to expire at the end of March communities face a crisis within days, as operators are required to give six-weeks’ notice of plans to cancel or change routes.

Labour’s analysis, based on figures by the Confederation of Passenger Transport released today, reveals that over 1,600 routes could be cut this spring, leaving England with fewer than 10,000 routes for the first time since records began.

Figures show that if funding is not secured more than 24% of services across South Yorkshire will be lost – meaning 47 services could be cut from the network.

In the last year alone, over 1,100 routes have been cut nationally, despite the Conservatives promising “bus services so frequent you wouldn’t need a timetable” and vowing to “not only halt the decline (in bus services) but reverse it.”

Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh MP, is urging the Government to:

• Give bus operators, communities and local leaders the certainty they need on the future of the Bus Recovery Grant
• Come clean on wider long-term funding for the Bus Back Better strategy –over half of communities are seeing no funding whatsoever from the strategy, leaving the Government’s pledge to transform bus services in tatters
• Put communities in control by following Labour’s plan to give communities power and control of their bus routes and fares.

Louise Haigh MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, said:

“The Conservatives are asleep at the wheel, risking the future of services millions of passengers depend on. They have ten days to act, or services could plunge to a record low.

“After 13 years of the Conservatives, the bus services communities depend on are stumbling from one crisis to the next.

“Labour will reform the broken bus system, giving communities control of their own bus routes and fares and delivering the better bus services that passengers need.”