West midlands bus franchising

[Wumpty]

And you can bet that Mr Burnham isn't mentioning this in any of his many press conferences either! Even more ironic is how First particularly were painted as the bad guys in Manchester before franchising and yet now they are getting the 'Bees' out of a hole. Irony these politicians certainly can't comprehend that is for sure!

A prime example is happening in Manchester at the moment. Stagecoach is the prominent operator in South Manchester commercially, TfGM award two garages to Metroline. Lots of Stagecoach staff are happy working for them so choose to fill all the remaining vacancies at Stagecoach's remaining garages instead of TUPE transferring to Metroline.
Metroline haven't had chance to recruit enough new recruits to fill the gaps, so lots of buses missing that weren't before franchising, so much so that TfGM have now had to call First Group in from Rochdale to run some of the services they have only just awarded to Metroline, and I bet First are charging them nicely for the privilege.

Mr Burnham hasn't but callers to BBC Radio Manchester in the last few weeks most certainly have! His only, and continued parrot-fashioned response is that most new businesses need a little help, and the majority of services are running with little disruption!

I'm sure the same will happen when bus franchising hits the West Midlands, with whoever wins the tenders needing help from intergroup, or from another operator like NXWM.