From January, bus passengers across most of England will pay no more than £2 for a single journey. In parts of Herefordshire, unless two local operators change course, they won’t.
Picture two young people starting their first jobs in Hereford this January. One travels in from Ross-on-Wye or Ledbury on a Stagecoach or DRM bus: £2 each way, £4 a day. The other makes a similar journey from Leominster, on a route whose operator hasn’t joined the national fare cap, and could be paying over £6 for a single and over £9 for a return. Over a working year, that’s roughly £1,200 more, just to get to work.
That’s where Herefordshire stands right now, but there are still three months to fix it.
What the fare cap is
From 1 January 2027, the national fare cap will limit most single bus fares in England to £2, down from £3 now. It runs until the end of 2027 and is funded by central government, which reimburses operators for the difference. Taking part is voluntary.
Who’s missing out
Herefordshire’s two largest local operators, Yeomans Travel and Sargeants Bros, don’t currently take part. Between them, they run most of Hereford’s city buses and the routes to the north and west of the city. Unless that changes before January, thousands of passengers in those areas will keep paying full fare while most of the country pays £2.
What the evidence says
Cheaper fares bring people onto buses, including in rural areas. Cornwall’s government-funded fares pilot cut fares by around a third on average, and passenger numbers in the first half of 2023/24 were more than 20% higher than the year before. The government’s own travel attitudes research found that 59% of people would be willing to pay £2.50 for a capped fare, but only 17% would pay £3.
Closer to home, the 232 Daffodil Line has charged £2 since it launched in 2023, and passenger numbers have grown every year since.
Partnership should work both ways
Operators like Yeomans and Sargeants already rely significantly on public money: school transport contracts, council-tendered routes, and the Bus Service Operators’ Grant, which helps with fuel costs. That’s as it should be. They provide a public service, and through Herefordshire’s Enhanced Partnership they have a real say in how the county’s buses are run.
But when public funding benefits the operator directly, it’s taken up without hesitation. When funding comes along that mainly benefits passengers, we’d expect the same enthusiasm. When the £2 cap first launched in 2023, operators carrying around 90% of England’s bus passengers signed up, including every major national group. So the question for Yeomans and Sargeants is a simple one: what makes Herefordshire different?
Les Lumsdon of Rail & Bus for Herefordshire, who is campaigning alongside us on this, puts it plainly: “Operators who opt out are not just making a commercial choice – they’re making a choice about who gets to work, to study, and to take part in this county’s economy, and who doesn’t.”
What we’re asking for
We’re asking Yeomans Travel and Sargeants Bros to rethink their position and commit publicly to joining the scheme before January 2027.
And if you live in Herefordshire, we’re asking you to tell both the council and the operators how this affects you. You can contact the council’s public transport team at public.transport@herefordshire.gov.uk, and reach Sargeants Bros and Yeomans Travel through their websites linked above.
Operators listen when passengers speak up.
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