I would imagine that Kim will be getting plenty of advice from the transport team in Andy Burnham’s office. There are different challenges in the North East given it’s an eclectic mix of urban and rural, but as a rule it probably will end up being franchising routes as they exist at the time of introduction because that will be the most logical way of transitioning. But once it has bedded in, in will then be a lot easier to do a full network review given we’ll no longer have private bus operators doing what is best for them in their own area with precious little consideration of the whole.

Just as a thought, if park and rides ever have a hope of taking off up here, then we will need to have dedicated park and ride buses that take users directly to where they need to be. So for commuters from South Gateshead and Durham to Newcastle, you’d need a service that runs non-stop from wherever the car park is to Central Station and one of the bus stations and then the same in the opposite direction, avoiding Gateshead Town Centre entirely. Same for any park and ride based at the Metrocentre, or one for commuters from Northumberland. Plonking a car park somewhere and then just expecting people to get on existing service buses will never work.