Property boom scares bus drivers

Repairs made following the Hatfield crash have disrupted rail services

Rocketing housing costs in the UK are hitting efforts by bus operators to fill driver vacancies and improve services.

In turn, this has hindered efforts to ease the London's transport crisis.

We do not care so much about where the drivers come from.

Northern France has been one area where bus drivers have been coming from.

Chris Moyes
Go-Ahead

Transport firm Go-Ahead, whose subsidiaries run more than 1,000 London buses, has joined the growing number of organisations to blame recruitment problems on the high price of renting or owning a home around the capital.

The firm's bus arms, which include London Central, London General and Metrobus, have been forced to look abroad to fill vacancies.

"We do not care so much about where the drivers come from," said Chris Moyes, Go-Ahead's deputy chief executive, told BBC News Online.

"Northern France has been one area where bus drivers have been coming from."

Commuting drivers

The shortage is hindering high-profile efforts to boost public transport in the face of mounting road congestion.

Sir Frederick Holliday, the firm's chairman, said: "Only the bus can satisfy [London's] immediate public transport needs.

"But the shortage of semi-skilled staff in London, largely occasioned by the high cost of accommodation, is limiting the ability of the company and its competitors to respond.

"It is difficult to recruit bus drivers from EU member states to work in London. Recruitment from non-EU states is all but impossible."

Go-Ahead's announcement follows similar concerns raised by the National Health Service and police.

It also comes on the same day as the Economist Intelligence Unit warned that the shoddiness of the UK's transportation network risked deterring inward investment.

Go-Ahead's Mr Moyes said: "You get Metropolitan Police who commute into London from Hampshire because of this issue. It is roughly the same situation with us."

Groundbreaking deal

Mr Moyes also revealed that Govia, the train operator Go-Ahead owns with France's national rail operator SNCF, is entering "detailed negotiations" over a landmark track and signal management deal.

Results snapshot - Go-Ahead

Turnover: £285m (+6.5%)

Pre-tax profit: £20.1m (-9.6%)

Spent £5.8m defending takeover bid

Data for six months to 30 Dec

Govia heads held "detailed negotiations" this week with infrastructure management firm Railtrack over a £600m cash injection into the London to Brighton route.

The deal discussed would see Go-Ahead pay civil engineering giant Bechtel to undertake the work, with Railtrack buying the improved route on the completion of the refurbishment.

The scheme would represent the nearest step yet to ending the monopoly over rail and signal infrastructure management Railtrack assumed on the privatisation of the network in the 1990s.

And it follows mounting pressure on the firm from politicians and industry to improve the infrastructure following October's Hatfield rail crash, in which four people died.

Stagecoach earlier this month unveiled plans to invest £1.3bn upgrading track and stations, and has, with Virgin, proposed building 120 miles of high-speed track for London to Scotland trains.

Partnership drive

Mr Moyes said Govia's decision to take on a track management role was "in part" prompted by dissatisfaction with Railtrack's performance.

"But there has been recognition by Railtrack of the amount of work it has to do all over the country," Mr Moyes told BBC News Online.

"This is a way of taking some of that workload off their shoulders."

Railtrack, which said it was "always keen to explore partnerships", restated its role as the UK's sole infrastructure operator.

"We have and will retain legal responsibility for the infrastructure," a company spokesman told BBC News Online.

In the City, shares in Go-Ahead, which also owns Thames valley rail operator Thames Trains, closed unchanged at 772.5p.