The New Year is beginning with a bit of a bang in Greater Manchester.
Overnight on January 4, and into the early hours of January 5, we will see the biggest change yet to our buses with services in the south returning to local public control.
Four decades of deregulation will be over. We will finally be back in charge of our entire bus network.
It is a big moment and I thank those before me, such as Sir Howard Bernstein and Sir Richard Leese, who fought for decades to bring it about.
In an era when it has felt like most things are broken or going backwards, Greater Manchester’s Bee Network has bucked the trend. It is the most visible piece of successful public service delivery in recent times.
Completing this first phase on time and on budget is a huge achievement for us and I hope it means 2025 can begin on a much-needed optimistic note.
It proves things can indeed be fixed, moved forward and made to work better.
There will no doubt be a bumpy few days next week until things settle down but I am confident passengers in our southern half will soon see a difference.
Within a few weeks, 66 per cent of the fleet will be brand new and 50 per cent of it will be quieter, cleaner zero-emission buses by the end of 2026.
If services follow the same pattern as those already under local control, they will soon be more reliable than the deregulated ones they replace.
This allows me, I hope, to ask you to make a New Year’s resolution: to switch to the Bee Network in 2025 and to leave the car at home.
The more that people do this, the longer we will be able to keep our £2 cap in place, hold fares as low as possible and make the whole transport system flow better for everyone.
For many years now, Greater Manchester has been growing faster than the UK economy. Our skyline tells the story of that change. But, as with any global city of our stature, congestion is a constant challenge and public transport has to become the priority way of getting around.
If people are to buy into that, I know we have to work even harder to make it feel safer, more reliable and convenient to use. So, on March 23, Greater Manchester will bring in a London-style tap-in, tap-out payment system, across trams and buses, with a daily cap on what people can spend.
I hope this flurry of delivery sets a good tone for the rest of 2025. Phase two of the Bee Network, which involves integrating eight commuter rail lines by 2028, starts in earnest straight after.
We all know the railways cannot continue in their current chaotic state. Like buses, a big part of the solution is more local democratic control.
Where is the proof of that? Look no further than the other end of the M62 where Mayor Steve Rotheram already oversees one of the UK’s most accountable and best-performing rail operators, Merseyrail.
This brings me to a serious point.
One of the main reasons why this Government has inherited such a mess is because of the way previous ones of both colours changed the running of essential services.
Transport, housing and education used to be under much stronger local control until the 1980s and 1990s. From then onwards, they were broken up, sold off and shunted into a model of governance which has led to an accountability deficit.
We have had a remote Whitehall supposedly running services through private or arms-length entities. The reality is it has been a recipe for fragmentation, poor service standards and vested interests taking priority over the public interest. Politicians no longer have control of the levers to make these essential things work better and that, inevitably, has damaged people’s faith in politics.
The moment to change this is now. 2025 should be the year of restoring local control – and the place to start is housing.
In May, we will introduce the GM Good Landlord Charter based on the success of our Good Employment Charter. It will change the conversation about housing standards.
But we need to go deeper. The lack of meaningful local control over this most fundamental of needs is leaving millions in harmful housing situations and creating huge pressure on public services and public finances.
To show a new determination to face up to the housing crisis, all politicians should make their own resolution: to speak explicitly about “council housing” instead of just “social housing”. More council housing is what will restore local control to the system and, for instance, allow councils to reduce the ruinous cost of temporary accommodation.
Beyond that, the Government should use the forthcoming Spending Review to make building hundreds of thousands of council homes its defining purpose. No other policy achievable in this Parliament would bring greater social and economic benefits. Greater Manchester will be submitting a plan as to how it can be made to stack up using publicly-owned land, particularly around rail stations.
People will no doubt say: all well and good – but where will the skilled workforce come from for such an ambitious home-building plan?
This brings me to one further area where we need to see the restoration of more local control: education.
Expect to hear much more in the New Year about the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate or MBacc – our plan for an equal alternative to the university route. It is only by giving young people growing up here a clearer path to the door of our own GM-based employers that we will get those new homes built and keep the Bee Network moving.
So, as you can see, we have a thought-through plan. We are going into 2025 with a spring in our step and a can-do spirit. I hope it becomes infectious. If the local control achieved with our buses starts to bring similar benefits to housing and skills, and other places move in a similar direction, then perhaps the country can draw a line under these dysfunctional recent times and start to look to the future with more confidence and optimism.
Let’s commit to making it so. Happy New Year everyone.
Andy Burnham is the Mayor of Greater Manchester.