On Monday, July 20th 2026, Andy Burnham became the United Kingdom’s 59th Prime Minister. If that name doesn’t mean much to an American audience yet, here is the context: imagine if a mayor who built a national reputation by fixing a major city’s transit system was elected president, in part, on the strength of that record. That is roughly how Britain got here—and it carries far-reaching implications for how tens of millions of Britons use public transit.
To understand why, you have to go back to Margaret Thatcher.
In 1986, Thatcher’s government deregulated bus services across England, Scotland, and Wales—everywhere except London (which eventually won a political battle to retain local control). True to the free-market economic consensus of that era, the hypothesis was that competing private operators would provide better service. Local governments lost the authority to set routes, timetables, and fares. Instead, private bus companies could run whatever they liked, wherever they liked, with just 56 days' notice.
Burnham himself doesn't mince words about what the impacts of this policy were. Speaking recently on Via's ModeShift podcast with our Chief Policy Officer, Andrei Greenawalt, he put it bluntly: "If you want wider economic growth, transport has to be planned. It has to be organized. It has to be comprehensive. It has to be affordable. And the UK's had a 40-year experiment where that wasn't the case."
Four decades on, official figures show that while bus journeys in London roughly doubled between 1985/86 and the mid-2010s, journeys in England’s other metropolitan areas dropped by nearly 48%. Greater Manchester suffered an even steeper collapse: falling from roughly 355 million annual bus journeys to just 182 million by 2019. Networks fragmented into dominant regional monopolies, and unprofitable rural and evening routes vanished. Parliament's own Transport Committee concluded bluntly that deregulation "promised to deliver lower fares and improved services; it has failed to do so."
Elected Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017, Burnham spent much of his tenure reversing that experiment and ushering in a new era of bus “franchising” to bring back local control. It was a hard-fought battle. Burnham lacked broad taxing powers—relying on a small, capped levy and a single negotiated grant from Westminster for the bulk of his budget. To enable franchising in Manchester, Parliament first had to pass enabling legislation in 2017, and Burnham then had to withstand fierce court challenges from private bus operators. Undeterred, he became the first UK mayor to take the leap and return buses to local public control.
The result was the "Bee Network," rolled out in phases between September 2023 and January 2025. Rather than nationalizing assets, the public authority sets the routes, timetables, and fares, while private operators bid for contracts to run the buses—much like a U.S. city contracting out waste management while setting strict service standards.
The early results are striking:
Almost certainly, yes—and the momentum was already building prior to his elevation to 10 Downing Street. Burnham has consistently pointed to transport franchising as a blueprint for wider national public service reform, asserting: "We will ensure all parts of the UK are able to take greater public control of essential services… learning from the model that has transformed our bus networks here in Greater Manchester."
Regions like the Liverpool City Region, the West Midlands, and West Yorkshire have already committed to following Manchester’s blueprint. This shift is further turbocharged by national policy: the Better Buses Bill passed by Parliament late last year formally equips every local transport authority in England with the statutory powers to franchise bus services and lifts barriers to municipal bus companies. This feeds directly into the UK's overarching Integrated Transport Strategy, moving the nation toward a joined-up, multi-modal system where buses, rail, and active travel operate under synchronized timetabling and unified ticketing. Together, these policies signal a major nationwide transition away from deregulated market fragmentation toward integrated, place-based transport planning and service.
There is a catch, however: franchising can be expensive to implement, and costs can escalate beyond initial projections. Transport for Greater Manchester estimated the capital cost of setting up the Bee Network at roughly £134 million—just for setup and depot acquisitions, excluding ongoing subsidies. Franchising authorities also assume all farebox risk and face higher tender costs driven by labor shortages, fuel price shocks, and shifting employment taxes.
For smaller local authorities, taking on that financial risk is a daunting proposition, leading some to hesitate over liabilities they cannot budget for. Yet, when addressing regional leaders weighing this decision, Burnham's message has remained focused on the bigger picture: “The public should be in control of their bus system and finally they will be.” He has repeatedly emphasized that the long-term economic gains of local public control far outweigh the initial operational friction.
Now that Burnham has officially taken over the premiership from Keir Starmer, all eyes are on how Downing Street will support local authorities executing this transition. Given his core belief that public control of transport is a prerequisite for broader economic growth, Burnham could well view national transport integration not as a cost center, but as a strategic policy that pays for itself over time.
Whatever the financial cost of scaling bus franchising, Britain now has in Andy Burnham arguably the strongest advocate for public transit to enter 10 Downing Street in modern history.