(15 Mar 2021, 12:54 pm)James101 wrote There’s so much to take in & to be clarified but the enforced quality partnerships need to have a nationally mandated framework. I don’t see why a council with a poor track record of supporting buses (Hi, Hartlepool) would be any more motivated to support buses under this arrangement. What would prevent the operator and the council agreeing to *reduce* services to save costs?

As for cross boundary services, it could be messy to get every local authority in which the X9/10/11 operate to agree.

It's should be the North East Joint Transport Committee (Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham) and Tees Valley CA (Darlington, Hartlepool, Redcar, Stockton, Middlesbrough) who should be the 2 people controlling the budgets for it imo rather than the local councils doing it. I believe the Tees Valley pretty much do already anyway with the new DRT scheme all over the area.

NEJTC on the other hand is a bit more messy, but it would be better if it was combined rather than the Metro (Nexus), Northumberland and Durham Councils running it who none have any interest in buses bar how cheap they can do it.