{"id":18354,"date":"2019-06-28T15:54:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T14:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=18354"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:56:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:56:03","slug":"manchester-burnham-bus-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=18354","title":{"rendered":"Manchester bus travel ‘renaissance’?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plans by Greater Manchester\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mayor Andy Burnham to take back control of the conurbation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bus services could herald a renaissance in bus travel, Unite said today (June 28).<\/p>\n

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Unite said that bus travellers had halved in Greater Manchester since the industry was deregulated by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many people put off by the pricing structure with the highest\u00c2\u00a0 current single fare within the Manchester area a hefty \u00c2\u01414.20.<\/p>\n

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Unite, which has 5,000 members in the bus industry across Greater Manchester, was commenting as the Greater Manchester combined authority met today to approve the proposals.<\/p>\n

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Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lead officer for the bus sector in the north west John Boughton said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite believes that regulation will be good as it will lead to a proper, integrated service and ticketing that would allow travel on buses, trams and even trains.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnder the mayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposals fares could be capped at \u00c2\u01411.50 for a single journey as is the case in London \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at present, the highest single fare is \u00c2\u01414.20 which is prohibitive for many people, especially those on low incomes,” he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLower fares could herald a renaissance in bus travel as more people travel and this, in turn, could act as a boost to the Greater Manchester economy.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt would lead to more bus services serving communities that currently don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any existing services as there is no profit in them for the private companies. This will give people access to more job opportunities and could stimulate more economic activity.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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However, John Boughton issued a word of warning to Andy Burnham as the mayor aimed to create a world class integrated transport system within Greater Manchester.<\/p>\n

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John Boughton added, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bAndy Burnham should not forget the thousands of Unite members who work within the industry from drivers to engineers and admin staff.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere needs to be an agreement that the mayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposals to franchise services to bus operators will not be an excuse for those operators to cut transport workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pay, and terms and conditions.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere needs to be an agreement made as to minimum standards, not to mention the thorny issue of pensions.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Greater Manchester would be the first city region outside London to make use of the new powers to regulate buses introduced under the Bus Services Act 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plans by Greater Manchester\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mayor Andy Burnham to take back control of the conurbation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bus services could herald a renaissance in bus travel, Unite said today (June 28).   Unite said that bus travellers had halved in Greater Manchester since the industry was deregulated by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s \u00e2\u20ac\u201c many people put off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[193,640],"wps_subtitle":"Unite welcomes Manchester mayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plans to take back control of bus services","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25170,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18354\/revisions\/25170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}