Personally Speaking: More reli­able buses are the best route to help­ing town

My Personally Speaking column in The Sentinel (24 September 2026)

It's no secret that buses are of real interest to our new Prime Min­is­ter, and for good reason. In the sum­mer, we had the announce­ment of the return of the £2 fare cap on single bus jour­neys from Janu­ary 2027, and free 24/7 travel for eli­gible dis­abled pass hold­ers from April 2027.

Pub­lic trans­port is about con­nectiv­ity: con­nect­ing people to jobs, edu­ca­tion, health­care, and social activ­it­ies – whether they own a car or not. Bet­ter and more reli­able bus ser­vices reduce traffic con­ges­tion, clean our air, and they make oppor­tun­it­ies more access­ible to every­one.

I am so delighted by the recent announce­ment of a new dir­ect rail con­nec­tion between Stoke-on-Trent Sta­tion and Manchester Air­port – it’s something I’ve cam­paigned hard for since I became our MP and shows exactly why con­nectiv­ity mat­ters.

It will open up jobs, travel and invest­ment for people across New­castle-under-Lyme and North Stafford­shire, and we should be look­ing to rep­lic­ate that suc­cess across all our pub­lic trans­port sys­tems – cre­at­ing a truly con­nec­ted trans­port net­work here in New­castle-under-Lyme.

That means mak­ing it easier for people to visit our local busi­nesses and hos­pit­al­ity ven­ues, attend events, meet friends and fam­ily, and secure a good job loc­ally.

Good trans­port should con­nect com­munit­ies not just to places, but to oppor­tun­it­ies, and the announce­ment of the new dir­ect train route will go a long way to mak­ing more of those oppor­tun­it­ies and the eco­nomic boosts that will come with it.

Buses are rightly described as pub­lic trans­port. They should there­fore be run in the pub­lic interest. That means provid­ing ser­vices that people can genu­inely rely on, regard­less of whether they live in rural com­munit­ies such as Aud­ley, Bet­ley and Made­ley, or com­munit­ies closer to town like Brad­well, Chester­ton and the West­lands.

People should be able to get where they need to go, when they need to get there, without feel­ing that hav­ing a des­ig­nated driver or pay­ing for an expens­ive taxi is their only option. Where someone lives shouldn’t stop them from being able to par­ti­cip­ate fully in com­munity life.

Yet one of the loudest frus­tra­tions I hear from res­id­ents is that our buses fin­ish far too early for people to rely on them in the even­ing and start too late in the morn­ing.

The last bus from New­castle Bus Sta­tion to Brad­well on a week­day even­ing is the num­ber 34, which departs at 6.10 pm. To Aud­ley, the last bus is the num­ber 1A, leav­ing at 7.16 pm.

If that’s a Fri­day night and you want to go out for a meal with fam­ily or friends, enjoy a cold drink or two, or sup­port one of our local busi­nesses, you could find your­self hav­ing to leave just as the even­ing is get­ting star­ted. For far too many people, the choice is between catch­ing an early bus home, pay­ing con­sid­er­ably more for a taxi, or not mak­ing the effort to go into town at all.

That’s bad news for pas­sen­gers, and it’s bad news for our town centre. If we want people to enjoy everything New­castle-under-Lyme has to offer, sup­port our local busi­nesses and help our local eco­nomy to thrive, pub­lic trans­port has to work for people throughout the day and into the even­ing too.

Local lead­ers do have the legal powers to take con­trol of their bus net­works, as Greater Manchester has done, but in the absence of that kind of action here in Stafford­shire, the clearest way we can influ­ence the ser­vices we get is through evid­ence. Par­tic­u­larly by mak­ing sure res­id­ents’ voices are heard by those who do hold the levers.

Dur­ing the sum­mer recess I met with bosses from our local bus com­pan­ies to raise con­cerns I’ve heard from people across New­castle-un­der-Lyme dir­ectly and hear from them about the future of our local bus net­work.

While those con­ver­sa­tions were use­ful, as we move for­ward, the people best placed to high­light where the net­work is fall­ing short are the people who use it every day, or, indeed, those who have given up try­ing to.

For example, it’s clear from my chats with local people that we need a bus that goes down Bas­ford Park Road again. That’s why I’m run­ning my Bus Routes Sur­vey.

I want to know which areas people in New­castle-under-Lyme think need bet­ter con­nec­tions, and what new routes are needed.

I’ll use that to con­tinue to press the bus oper­at­ors and Stafford­shire County Coun­cil to listen to our demands and help us cre­ate a pub­lic trans­port net­work that really works for the bene­fit of our area and our people.

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