Hampshire County Council has secured £27.2m of capital funding from the Department for Transport and £24.9m revenue funding over a four-year period, starting from the next financial year (2026-2027).
Councillor Lulu Bowerman, Cabinet Member for Highways and Passenger Transport at the County Council, welcomed the announcement: "This long-term funding gives us the certainty to work with bus operators and community partners to improve bus services – which is already paying off as Hampshire’s bus passenger journeys have increased by 6.8% over the past year. It means we can plan ahead with confidence and invest in improvements that will make bus travel more frequent, cleaner, and more reliable, bringing real benefits for residents.
“A better transport network makes it easier for people to choose greener travel, helping to cut congestion and tackle climate change. We are using the available funding on improvements which will encourage more people to take more bus journeys, so services become financially self-sustainable in the long term. The more people who use the bus network, the better it becomes for everyone – it strengthens our local economy, enables young people to reach education, training and jobs, and gives older residents more opportunities to stay independent and connected to their community.”
Recent figures released from the Department for Transport confirm a rise in the number of bus passenger journeys in Hampshire. They have risen from 24.9m in 2023/24 to 26.6m journeys in 2024/25 - an increase of 1.7m trips.
Specific investment areas for the Local Authority Bus Grant are based on strict criteria set out by Government. Funding will be targeted on a range of improvements aimed at boosting bus use across the county, including bus priority lanes, expanding timetables on busy services, infrastructure at sixth form colleges, real-time and on-bus passenger information, a fund for rural bus shelters and a community transport fund and toolkit.
From 2025/26, Government funding for Bus Service Improvement Plans and the Local Authority Bus Service Operators’ Grant will be combined into a single, consolidated grant. This national funding must be directed by local authorities towards specific service improvements and cannot be used to provide long-term subsidies for commercial bus routes.