Bus infrastructure needs bold ideas

How to turn budget promises into real impact

The 2025 Autumn Budget set out bold commitments, but how do we move from headline announcements to meaningful outcomes for communities? The promises are ambitious: £13 billion for mayoral areas and £5 billion to help scaling businesses. These commitments reflect a clear focus on economic growth, devolved leadership, and stronger public services. But ambition alone doesn’t deliver results. Turning these figures into real impact requires clear delivery plans, alignment between central and local priorities, and the capacity to overcome financial and operational constraints. Without this, funding risks remaining theoretical rather than transformative. The key question: how do we make these promises work on the ground? In this episode Public Sector Consulting Partner Phillip Wooley, Director Rob Turner, and Associate Director Cordelia Canning look to unpack this key question.

Bus infrastructure needs bold ideas

Buses are a lifeline for many communities in the UK, but services are under threat because patronage has declined. This first episode of our podcast discusses the innovative solutions needed to solve these problems.  Falling passenger numbers, funding focused on fare cuts rather than route improvements, and institutional bias towards new infrastructure are a few of the challenges facing the UK's bus networks. These are exacerbated by systemic issues such as misalignment between authorities, lack of capability in devolved bodies, and resource constraints.  In this episode of the podcast Charlie Hamilton, Consulting Partner, who also chairs the Northeast Bus Partnership Board, was joined by Ben Plowden, CEO of the Campaign for Better Transport, and Zelie Kasten and Laura Mason, from our advisory teams, for a conversation on how policy changes, technology, and sustainability goals are influencing mobility in the UK.