Mayor signs off on bus franchise deal

FOR passengers in West Yorkshire waiting for improvements to the region's deteriorating bus services, progress has for years seemingly been just around the bend, but never arriving.

- ROB PARSONS

But this week Mayor Tracy Brabin finally signed off a dramatic overhaul of the way the local bus network runs as she became the third politician in the North to take services under public control.

Such is the tortuously protracted process mayors are obliged to go through to bring in bus franchising, the Labour mayor only delivered on the promise she made in the run-up to being elected in 2021 just a few weeks before standing to be re-elected.

And the first franchised buses won't be up and running until March 2027. But signing off the decision on Thursday in Leeds, Ms Brabin described the move as the biggest change to buses in West Yorkshire for the last 40 years, adding: "What a moment for West Yorkshire, what a moment for devolution."