Discounted bus fare scheme extended to 1 January

Bus passengers in Lancashire will be able to get discounted fares for longer than previously planned after the initiative was extended until after Christmas.

The flat £1-per-journey fare in operation during evenings and all day on Sundays across much of the county had been due to come to an end earlier, with prices doubling to £2.

Back in June, the Lancashire Combined County Authority (LCCA) said it could no longer afford to subsidise the scheme.

It has, however, extended the offer to New Year's Eve, in line with the government's decision to lower the nationwide bus fare cap from £3 to its previous £2 level from 1 January.

The £1 fare applies to passengers travelling after 19:00 BST Monday to Saturday and anytime on Sundays and bank holidays, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Not all Lancashire operators are taking part in the local scheme amid claims that it is not financially viable for them to do so as a result of the level of reimbursement they receive.

Preston Bus withdrew from the initiative in April, while Blackpool Transport only offers the Sunday and bank holiday element of the deal, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

However, for those services where the £1 fare is offered, Phil Riley, chair of the LCCA's transport advisory board, said it made sense to rethink when to remove the offer in light of the lowering of the national cap.

At an LCCA meeting on 8 September, he said: "It was obviously an opportunity to not have a fee increase... [and] why would we put it up if we didn't need to?

"The circumstances had changed from when we discussed it... so it seemed a perfectly reasonable decision to make."

LCCA chief operating officer Matthew Sidgreaves told members that the cost of extending the £1 rate until the turn of the year could be met from existing funds.

The LCCA had previously heard that the £5m annual cost of delivering the scheme - under which 3.5 million £1 journeys were made between April 2025 and March 2026 - had become "unaffordable" and that a shortfall of more than £1m was looming should it continue until next spring.

That was as a result of rising expenses and a reduction in bus grant funding.

The £1 evening fare was introduced in Lancashire in January 2023 before being extended to all day Sundays and bank holidays around 18 months later.

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