Bus-fare apology from First

First Group’s northern regional managing director has apologised to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) for the way his company raised fares this month.

Furious transport leaders threatened to tear up their voluntary agreements with bus operators and use the law to control fares after First Manchester’s managing director Richard Soper wrote to them all, apparently blaming TfGM’s concessionary fares rise for increasing First’s fares in the area.

Mr Soper’s boss, regional managing director Dave Alexander, met with TfGM chairman Councillor Keith Whitmore and has now written a letter apologising for the “misunderstanding and tensions” caused by the letter.

Councillor Whitmore told our sister website, the Chronicle: “I have had a response from Dave Alexander. It is a very clear apology. I am encouraged by that and we have offered a meeting within the next couple of weeks to sit down and talk it through to mend those fences.

“I am hoping now that we will have a proper dialogue directly with First — which is what should have happened in the first place.”

But TfGM has not yet withdrawn its threat to use the Transport Act to impose quality contracts — which would give them power to fix fares and frequency — on operators.

Councillor Whitmore added: “We have not trodden the quality-contracts route because we talked about partnership. I thought we had a good relationship on partnership working.

“I am hoping to mend those fences and, if we can and it works, quality contracts do not have to come in.

“But at the end of the day, it is something we can do if operators act irresponsibly.”