(27 Feb 2025, 10:38 am)Andreos1 wrote But he's already handing out a shed load of money. 

The 1 and 2, Teesflex, the 101, the service that goes around Riverside Park in Middlesbrough, the X40/41... The list goes on. 

What's the difference between this and the scheme he's rejecting?

The massive cost difference, it all relies on the government actually giving the funds to fund the franchising. If Reeves decides next week to cut the BSIP funding in half then where's the money coming from? At least with those 5 services they can binned off immediately and no-one would care. Increasing the council tax to fund the 1 in Crook - as someone's paying for it, won't be popular in Redcar.

Btw I was doing some digging and if you do franchising you come liable for BSOG payments aswell as it's not allowed for tenders. Not really an issue in London where it takes 20 minutes to do 2 miles but it's a big big problem on something like the X4 or X93 where the miles some rack up. Someone has to pay for it.

Without proper funding from Westminister it's just kicking the can down the road but instead of some shareholders taking the risk, we're taking it instead through our council tax / business rates.