Mayor supercharges plans to bring dozens of new electric buses to the Liverpool City Region

LIVERPOOL City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram is putting the pedal to the floor on his plans to expand the Region's zero emission bus fleet with the addition of almost 60 publicly owned electric buses.

A bid has been submitted to secure £31m of funding for 58 fully electric double deckers, which would join the existing hydrogen buses to bolster the Region's publicly owned, zero emission fleet. The Combined Authority would match-fund with £20m of its own.

The roll out of new green, zero-emission buses is a key part of the Mayor's plans to revolutionise the City Region's bus network. In October 2023, he took a landmark decision to take back control of the Region's buses after nearly 40 years of deregulation. Franchising will give the Region greater control over routes, fares and timetables and the power to ensure that any profit is reinvested back into the network to improve services for passengers.

Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram said:- "Devolution has given our area the chance to build the 21st century London-style transport system that passengers deserve. From voting to take back control of our buses, investing in a brand new publicly owned hydrogen fleet, introducing £2 fares and bringing back the night bus, we're transforming our network for the better. More people get the bus than any other form of public transport. Like with our new publicly owned trains, they deserve to travel on clean, modern and accessible vehicles. I'm investing to ensure that the Liverpool City Region has a bus fleet to be proud of – 1 that makes travelling better for passengers and for our planet too."

The bid is to be discussed at next week's Combined Authority (CA) meeting, that is to be held on Friday, 15 December 2023.

The funding would come from the latest tranche of the Zero Emission Bus Regional Area fund (ZEBRA 2), which covers up to 75% of the cost difference between the zero emission vehicles and a standard diesel engine bus.

Formby Village plunged into darkness!

ON Saturday, 9 December 2023, a power cut affected the L37 and L38 postcode areas, caused by the high voltage power supply from the National Grid being affected by Storm Elin's high winds.

The National Grid 1st became aware of the issue at around:- 5.29pm, and engineers then got sent out to find and fix the fault as quickly, and as safely as possible. Due to the failure of the National Grid's network within the area, street lighting, traffic lights, and also homes and businesses got plunged into darkness, except for a few buildings with dim light from battery powered emergency lighting and Christmas decorations illuminating them. The National Grid said:- "We apologise for the inconvenience and thank your readers for your patience."



Within our video footage taken during the outage shows the Village and the Formby By Pass (A565) at the Tosco Junction. You can also see the power going on at the end of the video, as the network was restored.

The reference number for the power outage was given as:- INCD-955111-s and the log was created on:- 9 December 2023, at:- 17:29 GMT. To see if your area is affected by any power outages you can check online at:- NationalGrid.Co.UK.

The power was not the only casualty in the winds, but sadly Frosty also blew over and was damaged yet again. 

Let us know if this affected you by commenting on our post on our Mersey Reporter Newsbites Page  or by emailing our Newsroom at:- News24@SouthportReporter.Com or send us a message on:-  Mastodon, Facebook or Twitter.