Liverpool City Region Mayor Says Bus Franchising Improves Services, Compares System to London's

Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region, has written that buses in his region have been brought back under public control, a change he says has benefited passengers after decades of privatisation.

In an opinion piece published by The Guardian, Rotheram said that for years the public was told privatisation would deliver better bus services, but that the experience of millions of passengers told a different story.

Rotheram, who previously served as a member of parliament, said he observed a difference in perceptions of bus travel between London and other major British cities. He wrote that using buses in London did not carry the same social stigma as it often did elsewhere in the country, attributing this in part to London's bus network remaining under public control while other cities' services were privatised.

He referenced cultural depictions of bus use as a marker of low status, including a scene from the television series The Inbetweeners, and a statement often attributed to Margaret Thatcher — though he noted it is misattributed — suggesting that any man over the age of 26 using a bus could be considered a failure in life.

Rotheram argued that this stigma became deeply embedded in public attitudes toward bus travel outside London, even as London maintained what he described as an effective, publicly run bus service.

The mayor's comments come as the Liverpool city region has moved to bring bus services back under public control, following a trend of transport franchising being adopted by some regional mayoral authorities in England. Rotheram's piece frames this shift as a correction to what he characterizes as a decades-long experiment with privatisation that failed to serve passengers.

The Guardian identified Rotheram as the author of the piece, published in its Comment is Free opinion section.