STRATHCLYDE Partnership for Transport (SPT) has become Scotland’s first authority to back the introduction of franchised bus services.

The decision was made at a board meeting today and comes after organisations from across Scottish society united to demand reregulation of buses and an end to profiteering.

Better Buses for Strathclyde brought together transport activists at Get Glasgow Moving with organisations ranging from parents groups to the Poverty Alliance, Friends of the Earth and the STUC to demand a model that gives increased powers over bus fares, frequency and routes, garnering 10,000 signatures in support of their cause last month.

Speaking at a lobby of the crunch SPT meeting, Get Glasgow Moving’s Ellie Harrison urged councillors to take the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for SPT to seize powers to bring back the bus network under public control.”

She said: “Everyone knows that deregulation was a disaster.

“It’s been going on for nearly 40 years and the private bus companies have been extracting money from the system, doing as they please, cutting back routes like crazy and we have to turn that around.”

Despite veiled threats from McGill’s Bus Services chief executive Ralph Roberts of legal action against a model he claimed could lead to the “confiscation” of private assets, by 1pm the board had spoken, as SNP, Labour and Tory councillors united behind the plans, which have been costed at around £15m over the next “five to seven years.”

SPT vice-chairman and Labour councillor Alan Moir said: “The preferred options presented by SPT today have the potential to revolutionise local bus services in the west of Scotland to the clear benefit of bus passengers and local communities.

“The need to stabilise the local bus market, deliver bus reform and fully harness the strengths of all those collectively employed in the sector is also very clear.

“It is only by doing so that buses can fully contribute to our wider economic, societal and environmental objectives.

“Allowing the continued decline of services is simply not an option. We all need sustainable local bus services to deliver so much more.”

SPT chairman and SNP councillor Stephen Dornan described the plans as “bold and ambitious” but warned: “We need investment from the Scottish government, which now has to step up with real funding and a commitment to support public transport, particularly buses which for too long has been forgotten and now require urgent action.”