Local bus operator meets Mayoral candidates to discuss future of network
April 17, 2025
- Mayoral candidates visit depot
- Discussions over future updates to services
- Providing a sustainable bus network
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s biggest bus operator is welcoming the region’s prospective Mayors to better understand its work, and the major decisions that they will need to take regarding the future of local buses.
Stagecoach East is welcoming Conservative, Green, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and Reform candidates over the next two weeks, for a behind-the-scenes tour of what it takes to get a bus on the road.
High on the agenda are service changes that are currently due to come in from 31st August. Stagecoach East has been in discussion with the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) about the updates since January. However, the operator hopes that discussions can continue on how the routes can be best served.
Changes are needed to keep the local bus network viable after the rise in National Insurance increased the operator’s annual costs by £1m per year, putting the cost of provision up for those services already struggling to cover their cost of operation. They would see Service 8A in Cambridge run new frequencies to work around high levels of congestion in Cambridge. Meanwhile, the half of the Service 9 currently run by Stagecoach East, would be returned to the CPCA to find another operator – as has already been done for other half of this route. Service 9 currently loses close to £100,000 per year, although this is less than half its losses before Covid in 2019.
Also, Services 604, 606, and 607 would be withdrawn, due to the reality that two of these services only carry five children each day, and the other only 20.
Meanwhile, in Peterborough, the 31 and 33 Services would be partly amalgamated so that the 33 can run an hourly service between Whittlesey and Peterborough, no longer serving March, but with an extend service to the hospital.
Darren Roe, Managing Director of Stagecoach East, said: “We are pleased to be meeting the five Mayoral candidates over the next couple of weeks. I have a lot of empathy for their job – there are significant challenges that need to be faced up to across our busy and dynamic region, such as congestion and how we support rural services, and, in the immediate-term, how these routes can be taken forward.
“We are happy to work within any framework that they chose, but we just hope they will rely on the knowledge and experience of all our local bus operators.
“We only ever make changes to our services after considerable analysis, and hope that our engagement will allow for successful agreements with our new Mayor.
“Fundamentally, we have a responsibility to maintain the viability of our local network, and that means we must adapt to people’s changing travel patterns. We need to run buses where people want to travel – and any spare capacity that we can develop will be reinvested in routes that our customers want to travel on today.”
Notes for Editors:
1, For media enquiries, please contact Stephen Kiely at Stagecoach East on 07553 541618 or stephen.kiely@stagecoach.com.