ACORN West Midlands region

ACORN's West Midlands region contains the Branches and Groups Birmingham, Coventry, and Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle-under-Lyme, as well as many other members in other towns and cities, all fighting campaigns on the issues that matter to them. Join in with an action near you so we can win.

We are stronger together.

ACORN's West Midlands region contains the Branches and Groups Birmingham, Coventry, and Stoke-on-Trent & Newcastle-under-Lyme, as well as many other members in other towns and cities, all fighting campaigns on the issues that matter to them. Join in with an action near you so we can win.

We are stronger together.

Take Back Our Buses!

598 signatures

Take Back Our Buses!

ACORN Birmingham, with the support of other ACORN members and groups across the West Midlands, are campaigning for bus franchising. After successful campaigns in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, we believe the time is right for Birmingham to join the fight for better buses.

Bus service franchising means that decisions about routes, frequencies, hours and days of operation, and fares are no longer decided by the big companies, but are taken by a Transport Authority which is democratically accountable to the public.

Regulated in 1986, only London were able to continue with franchised public transport, creating a two tier system, one for the capital, and one for the rest of England. Only with the Bus Services Act 2017 was this injustice corrected, however the West Midlands Combined Authority is yet to take advantage of this crucial opportunity.

There were 144.6 million profit-generating journeys last year (2021/22) on our bus network. The majority of these services are run by National Express, who reported £145.9 million in profits whilst claiming some routes just weren’t affordable to run, leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill. Subsidised bus services in the West Midlands cost £11.5 million last year, up by £1.1 million from 2020/21.

Profits are being put before people, and it’s high time that public transportation was run for the public good once again. We live in a region that runs on its buses, they are the lifeblood of the West Midlands and the vast numbers of our residents who rely on them. 30 % of households have no access to a car and we deserve better!

Our members and communities across the West Midlands believe that through bus franchising we can acheive the best possible service through a publically controlled network, run for the benefit of residents, not simply to maximise profits and dividends.

Our campaign, which involves ACORN members across all 7 constituent authorities in the West Midlands Combined Authority area, will push for local councillors, leaders, the WMCA Board and the mayor to back the public’s demand to Take Back Our Buses!

For more information, or to get involved, get in touch at [email protected]

I support ACORN's campaign across the West Midlands Combined Authority area to Take Back Our Buses and bring the bus network under public control via bus franchising.

Under the current deregulated model our bus services and public money are held to ransom by bus service providers, who make big profits while demanding more public subsidies to operate any route which doesn’t help pay their shareholders. The bus network in the region is fragmented and uncoordinated, which has resulted in poor service, reducing coverage and massive expenditure to maintain what we have.

A franchising model would be of massive benefit to the West Midlands, giving the region control over the bus network and providing the necessary improvements to reliability, affordability, and access. This is a much needed change which has been successfully implemented in other major cities such as Manchester.

ACORN members and our supporters demand:

No more cuts to our bus services!
TfWM to take action to eliminate 'ghost' buses!
The fare cap to be maintained!
WMCA Board members to back franchising!
WMCA Mayor Andy Street to back franchising!

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