Bus Wars, Greenwood's and orange double-deckers: What the colourful story of Manchester's buses reveals about the future of our transport
| Date | 21 March 2021 |
| Published date | 21 March 2021 |
Although the pandemic has diminished passenger numbers and profits -leading to a £28m Government bailout -it’s hoped the network will rise again as lockdown lifts.
It makes the decision on whether to move the buses into public control, a choice for reform which rests with Mayor Andy Burnham, a vital one as Greater Manchester claws its way out of the pandemic.
Following a delay as a result of the Covid crisis, transport chiefs are now Greater Manchester looks set to take control of its buses after the pandemic after a fresh review showed a ‘high level of public support’.
If Mr Burnham agrees, it would make Greater Manchester the first place outside London to have a regulated system, with capped fares and streamlined and integrated timetables, since the 1980s.
The £135m plan, which is backed by all councils -albeit with some concerns from Bolton, was approved by councillors before scrutiny on Friday, and must now be considered by council chiefs -and finally the mayor.
It coincides with Boris Johnson's announcement of a Bus passengers to 'turn up and go' as Boris Johnson unveils £3 billion transport revolution in ‘act of levelling up’ to streamline fares, routes and ticketing. The details of their plan encourage authorities to do what is best for them in terms of partnership or franchising.
Many bus operators, including Stagecoach, First and Go North West and Rotala, have strongly opposed a franchising model, arguing it would lead to a fare rises and fail to turn around the decline in passenger numbers. One Bus -a body representing the region’s bus firms -said GMCA was ‘rushing the process’.
Stagecoach and Rotala, which runs Diamond Bus North West, have submitted separate court applications for a judicial review of the proposed bus reform process. Both argue Andy Burnham questions 'justification' of legal challenges to Greater Manchester's bus franchising plans because it did not properly take into account the impact of Covid-19.
However, the council papers argue that under all but the ‘least likely’ economic scenario modelled, regulating the network will still provide best value for the taxpayer.
A final decision, which could also see the buses return to being painted with one uniform livery, is expected by the end of the month.
History, it's said, helps to create a working understanding of change.
With that in mind, the Manchester Evening News has spoken to transport experts to learn about the region’s chequered past when it comes to the bus network; from the very first bus service in Victorian England, to the free-for-all post-war era of ‘pirate’ bus firms, from the ‘stable but static’ period of regualation, to the 'bus wars' sparked by Thatcher’s privatised model -which endures in Greater Manchester today.
Among those experts is Paul Williams, transport historian at Manchester's Museum of Transport who has spent years studying the history of transport in the region.
"Greater Manchester was the cradle of Britain’s buses. The region has some of the richest transport history to look back on to help inform how it plans its future," he said.
Where it began
It’s perhaps a little known fact that the UK’s first ever bus route was in Greater Manchester.
Like many stories, it started with one individual and a big idea.
In this case, that man was John Greenwood -and his dream was to run a bus service.
In the late 1700s, the roads were a mess, far beyond some of the pothole-ridden avenues we see today -so parliament passed an act meaning people could build good roads and in return charge people a toll for travelling over them.
Blessed with an entrepreneurial spirit, Greenwood, from Pendleton in Salford, built the Manchester to Bolton toll road and became what was then known as a ‘toll keeper’.
Watching people riding or walking into Manchester every day, he had a lightbulb moment, resulting in the UK's first ever ‘bus’ -albeit a horse-drawn carriage -in 1824, nearly 200 years ago. It cost passengers 6p a pop, or around 2 and a half pence in today’s money.
Greenwood’s company flourished and by the middle of the 19th century he was running hundreds of horse-buses in Manchester. His firm was completely privately owned and unregulated. It would later be inherited by his son, and then his grandson.
Rivals began to crop up and Greater Manchester became a thriving hub of competition in the Victorian era, when there was unfettered freedom for competition.
Trams overtake buses -an early franchising system
Then in the 1870s, came tramways, powered by horses. These, in contrast to bus routes, were expensive to build and the only people willing to bankroll them were local authorities, who had the legal powers to build them but not run them.
Necessity being the mother of invention, Manchester City Council effectively franchised the operation of the trams they had built to Greenwood's, whose business was renamed ‘Manchester Carriage and Tramways Company’.
Keith Whitmore, Chairman of Greater Manchester Transport Heritage, said: "Because of the rise of the railways, iron tracks in the road were thought to be superior to stagecoaches, or buses.
"The rise of the tram was very much at the expense of the bus.
"If you look at Market Street at the turn of the century you could see it was heaving with horse-trams. The mess those horses made on the streets was an issue.
"Trams really ruled supreme for many, many years. "
Other councils went down different routes. In Oldham and Rochdale, for example, they ran steam locomotives, again franchised to be run by outside firms.
But at the end of the Victorian era, a change in the law meant authorities could operate the tramways themselves.
Historian Paul said: “In the 1900s, this meant John Greenwood’s...
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