New powers over local bus services must be extended to all transport authorities and not confined to major cities, local government leaders will tell ministers. Last week’s announcement of a fundamental review of bus policy in England has been welcomed across local government, but with the caveat that it must be far-reaching. Announcing the review to the Commons transport committee (Surveyor, 29 June), local transport minister, Gillian Merron, promised a ‘long, hard look at the issues’ behind the general decline in bus usage outside London and a few places, such as York and Lincolnshire. Merron said transport secretary, Douglas Alexander, would decide the outcome in the autumn, to tie in with Cabinet colleague Ruth Kelly’s core cities agenda. This is expected to see major urban authorities gain extra powers over transport and other levers for economic development. But transport ministers will be pressed to ensure smaller and rural authorities benefit too. ‘The Government needs to recognise there are serious accessibility problems in rural as much as urban areas,’ said Mike Ashworth of the County Surveyors’ Society. Marginal commercial services were ‘falling by the wayside’ and shire councils were finding it increasingly difficult to rescue them with revenue support, he added. The Local Government Association will demand a ‘hierarchy of powers’ with measures to benefit all authorities in a detailed bus policy statement, to be approved later this month. ‘It’s not a case of “one-size-fits-all” or imposing the London model across the country,’ said Cllr Tony Page, chair of the LGA’s all-party bus policy group. Ministers’ recognition of the case for enhanced passenger transport authorities in city regions was welcomed, ‘but they have to put in measures that benefit all’, given that bus patronage was ‘woeful’, except for a handful of areas, Page added. After several false dawns, the Reading councillor is more confident of legislative action. ‘We have a new transport secretary on the up escalator. Mr Alexander wants to preside over radical new initiatives,’ he said. The review’s scope and promise of legislation signalled ‘potentially, the biggest breakthrough in 20 years since deregulation,’ said Jonathan Bray of the Passenger Transport Executive Group. Ministers had got the message ‘loud and clear’ from core cities that the best way to boost social inclusion and regeneration was ‘to sort out the buses’. But PTEs are still preparing their bids for quality contract powers to specify bus services. South Yorkshire will be the first to apply, this autumn. The bus industry is downplaying the prospect of legislation. A new ministerial team was bound to promise a policy review to MPs, said a spokesman for the Confederation of Passenger Transport. ‘The PTEs will always make noise because they want change.’