A major bus company in Birmingham which is refusing to pay for extra security for passengers has gained the support of a politician from the council making the demand.
Birmingham City Council last week voted for a formal demand for action from Travel West Midlands (TWM) to provide bus wardens on its buses to help prevent the amount of crime and anti-social behaviour that occurred on the buses, caused mostly by teenagers.
Councillors argued that since the company made £30M profit a year, TWM should contribute towards solving the problem.
However, the council’s transportation and street services scrutiny committee chairman, Martin Mullaney, who was not present at the time of voting, was disappointed the motion was carried. He told Surveyor it was ‘unfair’ that TWM should be targeted, as it was a private, non-subsidised company which reinvested money in improving its bus fleet, and that the council had an otherwise good working relationship with it.
‘We need to be investing more in safer travel police instead of bus wardens. We all need to sit down and work out together what we can do.’
A spokesman for TWM said only police had the power to arrest or detain passengers causing trouble on the bus, not wardens.
The company was working with West Midlands police through its safer travel initiative.
‘We feel the council, in conjunction with the local education authority, can do much more than they are at present to reduce incidents on board local bus services,’ the spokesman said.