South Yorkshire buses back under public control - campaigner reacts - video Dailymotion

The Star, Sheffield

Campaigner Matthew Topham of We Own It gives his reaction to Local Democracy Reporter Julia Armstrong on the decision today (March 18) by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority to take buses back under public control

Transcript

00:00Hi, so I'm talking to Bus Campaigner Matthew Topham. Amazing day today, the Mayor of South

00:07Yorkshire and his team in the background posing in front of a vintage bus. What's your thoughts

00:12about today?

00:13Well I mean today is a momentous day. It's the first step towards reversing the kind

00:17of death spiral that privatisation and deregulation pushed our buses into. But it's not the end

00:22of the journey. We know in London, Sadiq Khan as Mayor there is looking to bring buses into

00:27full public ownership as well as franchising them, which he's done for years. We should

00:31be looking for the same thing to happen here. They've set up a publicly owned operator for

00:35South Yorkshire so every penny of our fares goes back into the local service and no profit

00:40is extracted for the benefits of shareholders overseas.

00:42So the Mayor should keep his foot on the pedal for this?

00:45Absolutely. This is a gear change but it's not where the journey ends. We need to keep

00:49up the pace.

00:50So you're going to keep the campaign going?

00:52Absolutely. The campaign's got three goals from here. We want public ownership as I say,

00:56but we want two other things as well. We know that we can't deliver a quality level

01:00of service without a good deal for our drivers. That's how you get reliable services, by getting

01:04drivers sufficiently and consistently in the seats of the vehicles. And we also want to

01:09have a say for local passengers over services. This may be public control as the Mayor has

01:15announced, but if it hasn't got the public actually having a say over services, it's

01:19just another devolution to local leaders. It's not giving the power where it should

01:24sit, which is the passengers.

South Yorkshire buses back under public control - campaigner reacts

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