The Urban Transport Group has today welcomed the announcement that Government will extend its COVID funding support for local transport for a further six months.

The Department for Transport said the £150 million package for bus and light rail services in England represents the “final tranche of pandemic-related support” and will run for six months until October 2022.

Responding, Jonathan Bray, Director of the Urban Transport Group, said:

“We welcome this latest package of additional funding which will help to sustain bus and light rail networks as they recover from the pandemic. This forms part of the substantial additional revenue support that Government has provided throughout the pandemic and that has been vital to keeping public transport networks going.

“This six month extension of recovery funding should also provide the breathing space necessary to address the need for more comprehensive reform of bus funding. This should be based on streamlining, enhancing and devolving bus funding in order to enable bus networks to meet the medium and long term objectives of the national bus strategy for growing the bus market through more and better services.”