Arriva’s deteriorating bus services have now reached the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), the mayoral authority responsible for transport across the region. At its latest cabinet meeting, council leaders heard about cancelled buses, disputed performance figures and the need for a recovery plan. There was talk of robust conversations, deep dives and holding operators to account.
Deja vu all over again
There comes a point in every British public service crisis when somebody announces a “deep dive”. It is the natural successor to the robust conversation, usually followed by an improvement plan, a recovery plan, a partnership meeting and, if everybody is very lucky, another robust conversation about why the first robust conversation failed to produce the desired robustness.
Arriva’s troubled Tees Valley bus services have now reached this important stage of their lifecycle. The problems following the closure of Arriva’s Redcar depot were raised at the TVCA Cabinet on 25 September by Redcar and Cleveland Council leader Alec Brown.
You wait ages for a bus, and none come at once
For passengers who have spent recent weeks staring hopefully down roads for buses which may or may not materialise, the good news is that the matter now has the full attention of its regional government.
The less reassuring news is that nobody in the room appears to have asked the question increasingly being answered elsewhere in England…why don’t we take control of the buses ourselves?
The buses that weren’t supposed to disappear
When Arriva announced plans to close its Redcar depot earlier this year, the company assured customers they would not experience disruption to services. This assurance has since enjoyed roughly the same reliability as some of the buses.
Now, according to Councillor Carl Quartermain, Arriva has accepted that the depot closure did contribute to the disruption that followed, after losing more drivers than expected and being left with a much larger staffing gap than planned.
Brown subsequently said cancellations had “gone through the roof” and reported a tenfold increase in complaints. Alongside Redcar MP Anna Turley, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Luke Myer and Councillor Carl Quartermain, he referred concerns about Arriva’s reliability to the Traffic Commissioner.
Arriva is now bringing in agency drivers and staff from elsewhere in the country while recruiting permanent replacements. It also says it is investing around £10mn in the Tees Valley, including £8mn in newer buses.
So the depot closure that wasn’t supposed to disrupt services is now being followed by drivers being brought in from across the country to help restore them.
Going downhill rapidly
Almost two weeks ago, on 16 September, North East Bylines reported a deterioration in services since the closure of Redcar depot. You can read that report here. But things have become even worse since then.
And so, by 25 September, the problems had reached the TVCA Cabinet, where Brown raised the deterioration in services directly.
Cabinet heard about staffing problems, recruitment efforts and the measures Arriva says it has taken to improve reliability. The company is now expected to appear before the region’s Bus Partnership for that inevitable “deep dive” and to set out a recovery plan.
Arriva also says it is investing around £10mn in the Tees Valley, including £8mn in newer buses. Investment is welcome, but as Quartermain pointed out, the real test is rather simpler…do the buses actually turn up?
You can prove anything with statistics
Arriva also pointed to 98% of scheduled route mileage being operated. On paper, that sounds reassuring. On the ground, it is rather harder to square with Brown’s account of cancellations going “through the roof” and complaints increasing tenfold.
Route mileage and passenger experience are not the same thing. A network can operate a high proportion of its overall mileage while particular communities experience repeated cancellations and long gaps between services.
Hiding behind the figures
That disconnect was clearly troubling the cabinet. Brown challenged what improvement passengers were actually seeing, while the meeting heard that the TVCA needed to be “very robust” when presented with figures such as 98%.
Because 98% sounds excellent. It presumably sounds slightly less excellent when you are standing at a bus stop waiting for part of the missing 2%.
And that leaves a more important question than whether Arriva can produce an impressive percentage – are the figures being used to judge the service measuring the thing passengers actually care about – whether their bus turns up?
That is not an unreasonable standard to apply. In fact, it is the TVCA’s own standard. Its Bus Passenger Charter says passengers should be able to “trust the bus will turn up”. Not trust that 98% of the network’s scheduled mileage will be operated. Trust that the bus will turn up.
A robust conversation about the robust conversation
At around 34 minutes into the meeting came perhaps the most revealing statement from Tees Valley Mayor Lord Ben Houchen,
“We’re not there to defend them. We’re there to hold them to account and try and build a better bus service.”
Quite right. But while Houchen talks about building a better bus service, other mayoral authorities are changing who gets to build it.
Greater Manchester has already brought its buses under local control through franchising. Liverpool is rolling out its franchised network and West Yorkshire is implementing its own as part of the Weaver public transport network, a nod to its textile history; neighbouring North East Strategic Mayoral Authority (NEMSA) is also pursuing franchising.
Why can’t we just talk about it?
The TVCA, meanwhile, remains in an Enhanced Partnership with private operators. So Arriva will be summoned for a “deep dive” and asked to produce a recovery plan. Other mayors are taking control of their buses. The TVCA is having a robust conversation with theirs.
Houchen perhaps summed up the problem himself,
“If we keep speaking different languages, there’s always going to be a disconnect.”
There is, conveniently, a way of easing the translation difficulties. Under franchising, the public authority sets the network, routes, timetables and service standards, while private companies can still bid to run the buses. At the very least, everyone would be reading from the same timetable.
Instead, there will be this supposed recovery plan. There will be the appearance of accountability. And there will, of course, be that not so functional Enhanced Partnership. Let’s just hope somebody remembers to book a translator.
Meanwhile, on another bus network…
Franchising is hardly some exotic transport system recently discovered on a fact-finding mission to Scandinavia. You don’t even have to leave the North of England to find it.
In April, the government announced £3mn to help six mayoral authorities progress bus franchising: Liverpool City Region, the North East, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the West Midlands and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
Readers with particularly sharp geographical instincts may have noticed a region missing from that list. The Tees Valley.
Get a grip
And it isn’t because the TVCA lacks the power to do it. Since December 2025, franchising powers have been available to local transport authorities across England, with the decision whether to pursue them devolved locally. The TVCA has instead continued with, you guessed it, that Enhanced Partnership.
Its own website describes this as allowing the TVCA and local councils to work collaboratively with operators to “influence and improve” the bus network.
Influence. There is quite a difference between influencing a private company and deciding what service you want that company to provide. That difference becomes more noticeable when the buses stop turning up.
Chocolate teapot
Under the current system, the TVCA can challenge Arriva’s figures, demand explanations, summon executives to meetings and ask for improvements. As Houchen pointed out during the meeting, however, operators are not legally required to provide everything the TVCA asks of them.
Under franchising, the authority determines the network and contracts operators to deliver it. That doesn’t magically make buses perfect. Public control cannot abolish traffic jams, driver shortages or the impressive human ability to make a timetable bear only a passing resemblance to reality. Nor does it necessarily mean Arriva disappearing. Private operators can bid to run franchised services. The fundamental difference is who is ultimately in charge.
The question nobody asked
But amid all the discussion about making Arriva perform better, nobody appears to have asked whether part of the problem might be the system it is operating within. The TVCA can influence, challenge and cajole private operators, but ultimately it does not decide what bus service they have to provide.
It isn’t as though franchising has never crossed the TVCA’s desk. Its Transport Committee discussed it in 2023, when members were warned of the financial risks and told Cabinet had chosen the Enhanced Partnership instead. A paper examining franchising came back to the committee in January 2024.
That choice looks rather more interesting now the partnership involves hauling Arriva in to explain why its services have deteriorated.
We’re on the road to nowhere
A lot has changed since then. Franchising is no longer something associated principally with Greater Manchester. The government has made it easier for authorities to introduce and is actively supporting mayoral areas pursuing it.
The TVCA has another route available. Whether it ultimately decides to take it is another matter. But when a bus operator needs a recovery plan just to deliver the service passengers were promised, perhaps somebody should be asking whether it is only Arriva that needs a new plan – or the TVCA too.
Thank you to Ray Casey for contributing to this article.
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