On 3 May we have local elections in all 32 London Boroughs, 34 metropolitan boroughs, 68 district and borough councils, and 17 unitary authorities. There are a scattering of Mayoral elections, including a new mayor for South Yorkshire.
The Conservatives are expected to get a real hammering, especially in London where there has been speculation that the party might lose its flagship councils of Wandsworth and Westminster.
In years gone by losing these Boroughs would have resulted in the party leader being ‘thrown in the Tower’. Now the prospect of losing them is greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and a limp ‘oh well’.
Indeed, the new Chairman of the Party, Brandon Lewis MP, has even said that it will be a good night if the party manages to hang on to only Bexley and Bromley. I can’t make up my mind if this is the usual ‘expectation management’ so that if the results are better it can be portrayed as a great success, or a reflection of reality.
Outside London, the Conservatives are expected to perform comparatively better. They have never really done that well in London.
I can’t see what it is that is making the party so unpopular, and with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership being routinely criticised even by his own MPs, you might have thought it was Labour that was under the cosh.
Unemployment is at a record low and the economy is performing better than many commentators expected – we even saw a budget surplus last month for the first time in over a decade.
Yet the Conservatives are preparing for a real hammering. Perhaps in London the party is still being punished for Brexit.
Whatever the results, these elections are a timely reminder that local authorities are a critical stakeholder for coach and bus operators.
Their policies on traffic and highway management and, for coach operators, parking and access to city centres, are critical – to say nothing of the risks of any authority wanting to go down the path of bus franchising.
Yet I continue to hear that operators are poor at developing and maintaining relations with local authorities.
Some are doubtless better than others, especially where strong partnership deals are in place, and making generalised statements is always risky.
But my contacts in the local authority world tell me that the relationships are nothing like as strong as they could or should be.
I’ve said it before, but it is so important, so I’ll say it again: Every operator should have a close relationship with every authority in which it operates.
Given their importance because of the impact their policies can have on an operator’s business, it’s not just common sense but good commercial and business practice.
