Many MindedWest Yorkshire buys its bus network's hardware before the franchises begin
On November 2, FirstGroup announced a £109 million agreement with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. It covers five depots, their associated infrastructure and 330 buses, 79 of them battery-electric. Separately, the Combined Authority is spending £120 million on more than 250 new buses. Together that is £229 million, all supporting the region's new franchised Weaver Network.
The depot sales have completed. Buses will transfer as each franchise starts, between May 2027 and October 2028. Until then First Bus will keep running existing services under temporary depot leases. It will also manage electrification at the Bradford and Huddersfield depots, with the authority paying for the work. Under the first large contracts, the Combined Authority specifies services and keeps the passenger revenue risk, while private operators drive the routes.
The analysis comes from Michael Barnard, who draws on his own 83-page report on four decades of British and Irish bus governance. His argument is about timing. Operating contracts may run five or seven years, while depot buildings and electrical connections can stay useful for decades. Public ownership of those assets means the public, not an operator, holds the long-lived part of the system.
That matters for mobility access. If a public body owns the depots and power connections, a cheaper, cleaner bus network is less dependent on any one contractor. It also means the public carries the risk if the assets are badly sized or sited.
The caveats are real. This is an opinion piece by an author promoting his own report. Obsolete depots, undeliverable grid capacity and shifting demand are raised as general risks, not problems found in West Yorkshire, and no money is said to have been wasted. Watch the electrification work at Bradford and Huddersfield and the first franchise handovers in 2027.
Source: CleanTechnica