(01 Oct 2018, 9:40 pm)Andreos1 wrote It is all fine and well opening up the markets you mention and the ones in Oxford, but not at the expense of others. 

This is a relevant point because whilst new markets have always been few and far between, fighting off low quality competition has always been a way of life for Stagecoach Manchester (and GMB/GMSB before them) . However, up until 2014/5, they managed to do this without much of an impact on routes/areas not involved - Easter 2006 farce with UK North 192 notwithstanding. However, now competition and new markets are resourced by slashing services and hiking fares in captive markets to redeploy. 

Ironically, and three and a half months behind their BBC counterparts, Granada Reports broadcast an item on pollution last night using the wildly inaccurate IPPR North figures to join in the Media's ignorant demonising of bus users. As this item supported the call for "older" polluting buses (but NO other polluting diesels) to be fined under an LEZ, it reminds us that if Stagecoach do get their way in scrapping Franchising plans, they will not only dump more unupholstered Euro3* buses in captive market suburbs, but the fare gaps will widen even further to pay for the fines.

*To be fair to IPPR North, the figures they produced were wildly out of date at the time of the BBC rant (14/6/18), but since then Stagecoach have INCREASED the number of Euro3s from an all time low of 14 buses to 24 (all E400s) through cascading redundant examples from Merseyside.