(13 Jan 2022, 11:02 am)Adrian wrote If any Northumberland money should be going towards Arriva, it makes you wonder why they didn't have the foresight to develop a joint bid with Transport North East? There was nothing the ZEBRA guidance to state that LTAs could only work with a single operator.

Whilst there's no denying that it is a significant investment from the exchequer, there's also a significant amount of private funding involved... the business case states: "The delivery partners of this project, in particular, the bus operators, will provide £21,860,882 in match funding of the capital  costs for buses and infrastructure. This represents 54% of the overall project cost." The delivery partners, from what I read, being Go North East, Northumberland County Council and Durham County Council:

1) Go North East – Delivery of 49 zero emission buses and associated infrastructure operating out of Consett, Riverside and Percy Main depots.
2) Northumberland County Council – Appointment of a delivery partner and associated onward delivery of 10 zero emission buses and infrastructure on routes from Hexham; and
3) Durham County Council Appointment of a delivery partner and associated onward delivery of 14 zero emission buses and infrastructure to operate on Durham’s two Park and Ride routes.

So the ZEBs used on the Hexham services, and the ones used on the Durham Park & Ride, look to be owned by the respective councils. Possibly with a leasing arrangement as part of the contract?

Yeah that's fair enough then if they're part owning the buses in Hexham and GNE are doing the rest. I thought at first we were subsidising the 309/(310/311) and Durham were doing the 21 when arguably neither benefit either council and it seemed a total waste of our tax money when it should be Nexus / the other councils doing it.