(27 Feb 2025, 12:14 pm)Storx wrote 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.

You're still missing the point relating to the hypocrisy. He's doing what he says he refuses to do. 
Whether that's on a smaller or larger scale, he's giving them money. 

The franchise system can work different. 

If an operator wants to run a tranche or routes, they pay to do that.
Not the taxpayer or local authority.
It's far from ideal, but at least we aren't seeing the handouts we see currently.