Ken Houston: Don't sell a capital asset - we'd all miss the bus

THE City of Edinburgh officially denies it but, as the tram project shoogles between fiasco and farce, there cannot be a councillor or senior official who has not at least given thought to the possibility of selling off Lothian Buses.

Undoubtedly, tram-supporting politicians and their administrative allies will see this option as a 'get out of jail free' card, given the potential value of the council-owned bus company, which even in the current depressed economic circumstances would be certain to go on the market with a multi-million pound price tag.

Consequently there is a real danger - which, I believe, intensifies with every day that completion of the tram project is put back - that an award-winning bus network, which serves virtually every part of the city and in normal circumstances does so at a profit, will be sacrificed to pay the shortfall on an alternative, faddish form of transport, which will cover just one route yet still require a substantial annual subsidy.

Lothian Buses is - or, until recently was - the largest, most profitable and most successful of those bus companies still in municipal ownership in the UK. It's main 'shareholders' are the council taxpayers of Edinburgh who, through their city council, own more than 91 per cent of the stock (the remainder is divided between West, Mid and East Lothian). All company profits are reinvested in maintaining and updating the fleet so as to continue providing a comprehensive network of services almost unparalleled in Britain.

Lothian Buses has, through its own efforts, already successfully 'seen off' competition from business savvy national rivals so it would be nothing short of tragic if the company was to be handed on a plate by a council that, until relatively recently, had won plaudits for keeping its bus company in municipal hands when so many other local authorities had thrown in the towel.

One obvious potential buyer is First Bus, because it is the main rival to Lothian Buses within Edinburgh and District (and also, incidentally, the main provider of city bus services in Glasgow and Aberdeen). By all accounts First Bus - whose own origins are in municipal transport - is a reputable and efficient organisation but its parent is a publicly quoted company, answerable to conventional shareholders, who quite naturally expect an annual dividend and ongoing growth in corporate value.

For this reason the takeover of Lothian Buses by this or any other private concern would almost inevitably lead to a reduction in the fleet, diminution of the service pattern and a squeeze on staff wages and conditions. This in itself need not make an adverse product but it does suggest that the travelling public in Edinburgh would lose, for good, the exceptional service to which they have become accustomed. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to show that this was exactly what happened when the more efficient municipal undertakings in other cities and towns were sold off.

A more abstract, but nevertheless important, case for local ownership is identity. People frequently complain about how our contemporary High Streets all look the same, dominated as they are by national and international brands such as Next and Starbucks. This cloning began not with shops but with buses, through the break up of the separate municipal undertakings, first by Labour's push towards big regional authorities and then by the Conservatives' urge to privatise almost everything in sight.

Forty years ago there were 100 cities and towns in the UK that boasted their own ‘corporation buses', as they were endearingly referred to by the public, each fleet bearing a unique livery and branding, the centrepiece of which was the municipal coat of arms. Glasgow's rather garish colour scheme of green, orange and cream was not to everyone's taste (some critics considered it highlighted the local Protestant-Catholic divide) but at least the buses were in character with the city. When Aberdonians crossed the Bridge of Dee on the final leg of their return journey from holiday, it was the sight of a Corporation bus - bearing the historic motto, ‘Bon Accord' - that above anything else told them they were almost home.

With so many urban networks now in the hands of a few corporate giants, that local identity has mostly gone. Edinburgh is just one of three major cities in the UK outside London where the city bus service is still locally branded (the others are Nottingham and Cardiff); indeed Lothian is reverting to the traditional madder and white associated with Edinburgh Corporation Transport. In an increasingly bland urban environment, small differentials such as this are important.

In any rational scenario, retaining public ownership of Lothian Buses would be a no brainer but there are signs that in some Edinburgh council circles, trams have moved from an objective to an obsession.

For example, as The Scotsman recently reported, the council has published details of strict no waiting zones to be introduced in the city centre so as not to impede trams - even though the complete 11-mile line will not be working for at least another three years (even by the most optimistic estimates). Yet, as any commuter will testify, the present bus service is consistently impeded by illegal and inconsiderate parking, particularly at pinch points, such as outside the Balmoral Hotel and in Shandwick Place. It seems a strange parking strategy that prioritises a tram line that is still 80 per cent incomplete over the council's present bus network.

Even if the contractual dispute with Bilfinger Berger had not happened and the trams were on-time and on-budget, the intention to integrate these subsidy-junkies with Lothian Buses would still have a long-lasting, debilitating effect on bus service provision. Unless the project is scrapped at the eleventh hour that cannot be undone but let us hope that sufficient electorate pressure is put on the council to prevent the complete sacrifice of a bus undertaking which, on balance, serves the public well and to an earlier generation in local government, was also a great source of civic pride.

Obviously this does not appeal to some of our modern breed of ‘professional' councillor but they should still be told in no uncertain terms that they are custodians, not owners. These are our buses - and they're not for sale!

l Ken Houston, a citizen of Edinburgh, is author of The Corporation Bus, a brief history of municipal bus operators in the UK.