An additional £167m for the bus industry
Great news for the bus industry — the DfT have announced that there will be extra support through the COVID-19 Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG). This temporary funding of £167m is in addition to the increased amounts of BSOG to pre-COVID-19 levels previously announced by the Department.
In summary:
- Available to operators of eligible local bus services who are currently running between 40% to 50% of scheduled commercial mileage for a typical non-school week.
- Payments will be available for three months starting from 17 March 2020.
- The initial payment will be based on 2017/18 data submitted to the Department, with the following formula used:
- By the end of the month operators will need to provide a list of services (including registration numbers), the live commercial kilometres operated and passenger details (split by fare-paying and concessions). The same information will be required for 2019 as a baseline.
- Operators will not be permitted to achieve an operating margin through CBSSG funding.
Full details of the letter sent out to operators can be found here.
April 7, 2020
200406-CBSSG-Letter-to-Operators-Final-as-sent.pdf
If you have any questions on the CBSSG scheme then please get in touch with epm@epm-bus.com.