‘More than one way to go’

The City of Leicester Council celebrated a key milestone in its Enhanced Partnership Plus with seven commercial bus operators at the city’s First Bus depot on Wednesday 24 July. Kevin Carr reports

News of a fresh milestone for buses in Leicester and an updated plan for improvements took me to the city to hear more at a special event hosted by First Leicester.

Fresh out of a general election where buses were a hot topic, and a new Labour government elected on a promise to deliver power to local authorities to take back control of local buses, we are surrounded by hype around franchising. With Greater Manchester well into its second tranche, Liverpool City Region has signalled its intention to follow suit – as have both West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire Combined Authorities.

But what if, just what if, there is another way? Another way of delivering a multitude of shared objectives, without the heavy burden of franchising? Well, there is news from the great city of Leicester that everyone should hear.

Our location was the First Bus depot just off Abbey Lane in Leicester. A number of bus operators, council officials, representatives from the Department for Transport and the Mayor of Leicester had gathered to hear about Leicester Buses’ Enhanced Partnership Plus and the progress made since its conception in 2021. The Partnership is made up of bus operators Arriva, First, Centrebus, Roberts Travel Group, Stagecoach, Kinchbus and Vectare as well as Leicester City Council.

Just three years in, the Partnership has had many successes to boast in such a short time. The most impressive, a huge milestone perhaps, is that 50% of Leicester’s buses are now electric – that is 134 buses from four charging depots. Uniform branding is also making good progress with well over half of the Leicester bus fleet carrying its very distinctive green colour. And there is more. There are co-ordinated timetables across nine key corridors, 10 new bus priority schemes with greater bus lane enforcement, greener infrastructure and an increased range of flexible and low-cost ticketing options to choose from.

Rapid progress

So how has all this happened and so quickly? I was keen to find out. I heard first from City of Leicester elected Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, who is proud of the Partnership’s achievements. He said: “The challenge has been and continues to be enormous, but it is certainly paying off. Above all we just want to take the opportunity to celebrate the partnership. It hasn’t always been an environment of collaboration and partnership. But this has come about by people sharing their vision, sharing their investment and it has been quite remarkable – it really shows what can happen when every partner is genuinely committed to making it work and delivering on it. We are also grateful to past and present governments for their support in helping us deliver new, green electric buses through the ZEBRA programme. It is our intention that our entire fleet will be electric by 2030.”
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