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No powers to provide commercial bus services

24th of March, 2023

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Powers to provide commercial bus services

NALC have had a few requests about council powers to provide bus services. Councils have specific powers to provide community bus services, defined in legislation. What about commercial bus services?

There is no specific power for parish councils to provide commercial bus services. Councils with the General Power of Competence (GPC) can do anything that an individual can do unless the activity is specifically prohibited by statute (section 2 of the Localism Act 2011). An individual can run a bus service subject to obtaining all the necessary licences and permissions and there is no prohibition that applies to parish councils. This means GPC can be used by councils to run a commercial bus service.

If councils run bus services commercially (i.e. collecting fares in excess of the cost of providing the service), they will need to run the service via a company (section 4 of the 2011 Act).