Mayor ‘extremely confident’ Bee Network £2 bus fare cap ‘will remain in place’ for 2025

Andy Burnham is ‘extremely confident’ the £2 Bee Network bus fare cap will ‘remain in place’ for 2025.

The mayor introduced the £2 limit on single bus tickets in 2022 on private services, and kept it in place on publicly-controlled Bee Network buses after they began to be introduced in September 2023. Shortly after its introduction in Greater Manchester, the Conservative government applied the same £2 cap on all single tickets in England.

However, last October, Labour ministers said the cap would rise to £3 in 2025, as the initial National Bus Fare Cap fund was due to end on December 31, 2024. Despite that, Andy Burnham announced 36 hours later the Greater Manchester limit would stay at £2 — but it was subject to a ‘mid-year review’.

The mayor could keep buses cheaper because his cap was funded from a different pot of cash to the ‘English cap’, which was paid for by a £151 million National Bus Fare Cap fund.

Greater Manchester’s cap is funded by the £640m Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) fund, which was guaranteed until the end of March 2025. Now, the mayor’s said the ‘success of the Bee Network’ means ‘the £2 fare cap will remain in place for the duration of this year’.

“I know there have been concerns about the affordability of the £2 fare cap,” he told a Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) meeting on Friday (January 31). 

“But I can give that assurance that I am extremely confident the £2 fare cap, which is a hopper fare, will remain in place for the duration of this year. That will help our residents to save money.”

Mr Burnham made his comments as plans to raise the mayoral council tax precept by £16 per year on a Band D property in Greater Manchester. 

It’s said £11 of this increase is a planned rise in the subsidy of the Bee Network. Initially a £12.20 rise was planned, but surprisingly good revenues have limited it to £11.

“We believe these proposals are fair and necessary,” the mayor added. “But as we go forward… we are confident that the budget is sound and we are on strong foundations.”