National express West Midlands

[Mwanesh]

Please excuse my ignorance but do all staff TUPE across in these circumstances? Engineering? Commercial? Finance? Not all staff are allocated to specific garages.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Aug 2026 ==


Agree completely. However until franchising is complete, Parker will not be able to hide behind the contractor because it (West Midlands Bus) will be 100% owned by his authority. Smoke and mirrors but I doubt he will get away with that.

Feel for the staff involved. I fear this isn't going to end well. I suspect Mobico couldn't find a buyer willing to pay £100m+.

Who would buy an operation you could loose at franchising. The only thing is the Mayor has a lot of explaining to do. As pointed above he will have a company and then break it up seems what he has been asking for he has got it. Now he does not know what to do

 

[positron]

Personally if I was them I'd be looking very closely at the fact TfL are actively trying to move away from the franchise model, combined with the fact they suddenly own a company running 94% of services, and be trying to work out how to turn that into 100% municipal operation. This is as far as I'm aware perfectly allowable nowadays.

Like others have said the cats out of the bag in terms of hiding behind the private sector as a scapegoat.

 

[aswilliamsuk]

I think this makes a whole lot more sense than some are suggesting.

Mobico wanted out, and no one else would buy with franchising coming. WMCA now have much of the operation they are going to franchise in advance, and all of the data on it. Didn't GMCA in particular have difficulty with getting such info before taking on the operations? WMCA will now have no such issue.

Transition to franchising should now be easier, too, as they will be able to control everything and see it all, including the condition of the fleet (much of which is admittedly pretty modern, of course), and in terms of moving to electric, will have much of the knowledge already too.

 

[Leyland Bus]

Please excuse my ignorance but do all staff TUPE across in these circumstances? Engineering? Commercial? Finance? Not all staff are allocated to specific garages.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Aug 2026 ==

Quite likely that any staff at a central head office will be split up and distributed to the various garages and should that not be approriate for them then they would likely be offered redundancy as to stop with the outgoing company (WMB) won't be an option.

 

[Megafuss]

That doesn't appear to be the case, with the following from the R1 article:

"Meanwhile, Mobico has confirmed it will participate in the West Midlands bus franchise bidding process, which opened yesterday."

It will be quite something if Mobico end up running things having sold up to the WMCA.

 

[Ridercross]

Please excuse my ignorance but do all staff TUPE across in these circumstances? Engineering? Commercial? Finance? Not all staff are allocated to specific garages.

Away from the garages, most central staff (like me!) who are head office based already are employed by West Midlands Travel Ltd and purely work for bus division so we'll TUPE over.

There'll just be a few staff who are split between doing work for various Mobico group companies, so they will be the few who it remains to be seen what happens. There are fewer than there used to be as a separation of Mobico divisions has been going on for months, presumably in preparation for any potential offloading of WMT.

 

[Leyland Bus]

Away from the garages, most central staff (like me!) who are head office based already are employed by West Midlands Travel Ltd and purely work for bus division so we'll TUPE over.

There'll just be a few staff who are split between doing work for various Mobico group companies, so they will be the few who it remains to be seen what happens. There are fewer than there used to be as a separation of Mobico divisions has been going on for months, presumably in preparation for any potential offloading of WMT.

That's another thing, as trivial as it is... As WMCA are buying the bus company off NatEx, why is the new firm called "West Midlands Bus Limited" when they are buying "West Midlands Travel Limited"? This is temporary, so why waste effort/resources changing the name?

 

[Simon75]

Personally if I was them I'd be looking very closely at the fact TfL are actively trying to move away from the franchise model, combined with the fact they suddenly own a company running 94% of services, and be trying to work out how to turn that into 100% municipal operation. This is as far as I'm aware perfectly allowable nowadays.

Like others have said the cats out of the bag in terms of hiding behind the private sector as a scapegoat.

With TFL, I believe they own some garages (when it London Transport) and lease them out

 

[Simon75]

Are there any former National Express garages that hsve closed, still owned by National Express ie the original Perry Barr?

 

[mangad]

That's another thing, as trivial as it is... As WMCA are buying the bus company off NatEx, why is the new firm called "West Midlands Bus Limited" when they are buying "West Midlands Travel Limited"? This is temporary, so why waste effort/resources changing the name?

According to Companies House, West Midlands Bus Ltd was founded in June and is owned by West Midlands Travel Ltd. So for whatever reason it looks like Mobico want to retain the legal entity that is West Midlands Travel Ltd, and have (presumably) restructured the business into a new subsidiary whose ownership will eventually change. I am sure there's some excellent legal or accounting reason for doing this but us mere mortals can only guess as to what it is.

I am no expert on these things, but wouldn't that also get rid of the need for Tupe? All the staff get transferred to the new subsidiary whilst under Mobico ownership so there's no real change, then when the sale is completed everything continues as is as the legal entity that is the employer hasn't actually changed?

 

[Parebunks]

According to Companies House, West Midlands Bus Ltd was founded in June and is owned by West Midlands Travel Ltd. So for whatever reason it looks like Mobico want to retain the legal entity that is West Midlands Travel Ltd, and have (presumably) restructured the business into a new subsidiary whose ownership will eventually change. I am sure there's some excellent legal or accounting reason for doing this but us mere mortals can only guess as to what it is.

I am no expert on these things, but wouldn't that also get rid of the need for Tupe? All the staff get transferred to the new subsidiary whilst under Mobico ownership so there's no real change, then when the sale is completed everything continues as is as the legal entity that is the employer hasn't actually changed?

Might Mobico be retaining coach operations of WMT and keeping the legal entity for that? Can't recall the details but thought there were a decent number of NX coaches operating out of one of the NXWM depots.

 

[Kernow Dave]

Might Mobico be retaining coach operations of WMT and keeping the legal entity for that? Can't recall the details but thought there were a decent number of NX coaches operating out of one of the NXWM depots.

Or for their franchise bid - "Meanwhile, Mobico has confirmed it will participate in the West Midlands bus franchise bidding process, which opened yesterday."

 

[Bletchleyite]

Who would buy an operation you could loose at franchising. The only thing is the Mayor has a lot of explaining to do. As pointed above he will have a company and then break it up seems what he has been asking for he has got it. Now he does not know what to do

NXWM is I believe losing money. WMCA need the depots and vehicles for franchising (TfGM purchased these separately). There was a risk of them taking their ball home and selling to the open market, making their life harder, but they were happy to sell the whole thing, presumably at an attractive price due to it not being profitable. Thus it made sense to buy it even if it is being bought to in effect close it down (well, leave it as just a holding company that owns assets but has very few staff just dealing with the admin of owning those assets).

Having said that it seems an ideal opportunity to sack off franchising (or at least pause it) and try out large scale monopoly municipal operation in a major city, if the law permits.

 

[47550]

NXWM is I believe losing money. WMCA need the depots and vehicles for franchising (TfGM purchased these separately). There was a risk of them taking their ball home and selling to the open market, making their life harder, but they were happy to sell the whole thing, presumably at an attractive price due to it not being profitable. Thus it made sense to buy it even if it is being bought to in effect close it down (well, leave it as just a holding company that owns assets but has very few staff just dealing with the admin of owning those assets).

Having said that it seems an ideal opportunity to sack off franchising (or at least pause it) and try out large scale monopoly municipal operation in a major city, if the law permits.

I guess if WMCA sacked off franchising and ran it themselves then they would be open to a legal challenge from Mobico for forcing down the price of the business by threatening franchising and then acquiring it on the cheap.

 

[Megafuss]

I guess if WMCA sacked off franchising and ran it themselves then they would be open to a legal challenge from Mobico for forcing down the price of the business by threatening franchising and then acquiring it on the cheap.

I suspect Mobico are quite happy to sell a loss making business with franchising on the horzion

WMCA and the political types certainly can't crow about NXWM creaming off profits for shareholders...as there are no profits.

 

[mangad]

I guess if WMCA sacked off franchising and ran it themselves then they would be open to a legal challenge from Mobico for forcing down the price of the business by threatening franchising and then acquiring it on the cheap.

It wouldn't surprise me if the lawyers had put some clause into the sale contract about that.

 

[Gareth1990]

The PM’s words this morning suggest that services in Birmingham will not be franchised and instead will come under full public ownership…

 

[Leyland Bus]

The PM’s words this morning suggest that services in Birmingham will not be franchised and instead will come under full public ownership…

Do you have a link to that please? It sounds an interesting development.

 

[Gareth1990]

Do you have a link to that please? It sounds an interesting development.

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2026-08-18/west-midlands-buses-set-to-be-nationalised

The interesting quote is here

“But longer term, we are now building to a model under full public control, so that people here can get the the benefits of that.”

 

[mangad]

https://www.itv.com/news/central/2026-08-18/west-midlands-buses-set-to-be-nationalised

The interesting quote is here

“But longer term, we are now building to a model under full public control, so that people here can get the the benefits of that.”

I don't see anything new in that. Public control can be done using franchising.

 

[Gareth1990]

I don't see anything new in that. Public control can be done using franchising.

Yes, but he used the term ‘Full public control’ I don’t associate that with franchising

 

[Mwanesh]

I suspect Mobico are quite happy to sell a loss making business with franchising on the horzion

WMCA and the political types certainly can't crow about NXWM creaming off profits for shareholders...as there are no profits.

Wait till they get the shock of running a bus company. I think in the long term it will give mayors a reality check. West Midlands has had a near monopoly which may not be perfect but worked. The fleet was not that bad.

 

[BuhSnarf]

Wait till they get the shock of running a bus company. I think in the long term it will give mayors a reality check. West Midlands has had a near monopoly which may not be perfect but worked. The fleet was not that bad.

Agree, travelling in Birmingham was up there alongside London and Manchester as reasonably priced, multi-modal, frequent and decent quality and upkeep of fleet.

Nottingham have proven that you can run a municipal bus service, but that's likely because they never lost the ability/people talent and so they've changed incrementally as the landscape has and had the continued experience to train up new people. I think to suddenly enter the bus space now after not doing it for 30+ years will be difficult.

 

[mangad]

Yes, but he used the term ‘Full public control’ I don’t associate that with franchising

Franchising is about a public body specifying deliverables that the operator must deliver or face contractual penalties. The operator has to deliver what they're asked to deliver, including the determined timetable, vehicle types and specifications and more. Operators don't have any choices on routes to operate, the fares charged and so on. To the passenger, that's public control. This is entirely the model of Greater Manchester which our Prime Minister oversaw the implementation of. Andy Burnham's spent years talking about brining buses under public control and it was done via franchising. What he's said fits.

And to be honest, I wouldn't expect the prime minister to say anything that would directly contradict a press release put out by the WMCA just the day before!

 

[mattb7tl]

Yes, but he used the term ‘Full public control’ I don’t associate that with franchising

Key phrase is 'public control' ownership is not mentioned.

 

[Anthony ross]

It wouldn't surprise me if the lawyers had put some clause into the sale contract about that.

Further contingent consideration of £9.9 million is payable to Mobico in the unlikely event that WMCA reverses or ceases actively progressing the move to franchising prior to May 2028.


this is on the Mobico websiye under the media section

 

[positron]

£9.9m is a small price to pay to get rid of pointless overhead in the long run.

 

[Man of Kent]

£9.9m is a small price to pay to get rid of pointless overhead in the long run.

What is this 'pointless overhead'?

 

[johncrossley]

The debate used to be deregulation vs franchising but now it is privatisation vs nationalisation. So people like me who have been (and still are) advocates for franchising, are now on the same side as people who used to be pro-deregulation but prefer franchising over full public ownership. Of course, fees will be paid to the private companies but overall it should be cheaper than nationalisation because of the competitive tendering process.

 

[positron]

The debate used to be deregulation vs franchising but now it is privatisation vs nationalisation. So people like me who have been (and still are) advocates for franchising, are now on the same side as people who used to be pro-deregulation but prefer franchising over full public ownership. Of course, fees will be paid to the private companies but overall it should be cheaper than nationalisation because of the competitive tendering process.

I mean don't get me wrong franchising is absolutely going to be better than the current situation of a private companies doing what they want. But for me it's a stepping stone where the eventual state should just be public sector organisation(s) operating the services.

Hence why I keep saying it feels weird to go from close to the end state back to step 2. Obviously others will disagree with what an ideal end state is.

What is this 'pointless overhead'?

Well all the cruft of tendering contracts to private companies to run, instead of just running them yourself. Given it'll largely be the same staff actually running the services.