The board of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CAPCA) will hear the outcomes of the tendering process for withdrawn bus services in Cambridgeshire today (October 19).

The board is set to be recommended to agree to new contracts with bus operators to continue services which Stagecoach East announced would be withdrawn from October 30.

On September 20, Stagecoach East announced they were pulling out of 18 services completely and reducing a further five significantly.

The Combined Authority went out to urgent tender with potential operators the following day with the aim of continuing as many of those services as possible.

The report to the board, which also focuses on a wider bus strategy for the region, states the current position which is that 14 of the 18 services cut by Stagecoach, along with all of the five reduced services, have all received tenders from new operators.

The priority now is for the Combined Authority to understand how best to provide services for the communities on the four routes where bids have not been received, or only partially covered.

Currently, routes where no bids have come in are the 23 and 24 from Queensgate to Lynch Wood, Peterborough, the 915 from Royston to Cambridge, and part of the service 39 running from Chatteris to March.

Today’s meeting will make the final decision on whether to approve the new contracts which would keep services running until the end of March 2023.

Mayor Dr Nik Johnson said: “This tendering process was entered into with the intention of saving as many services as possible and, thus far, operators have been found for most of the routes, which is very encouraging.

“A small number of routes so far have no operator willing to take them on, despite us having funds available, so we will continue to work with bus operators to see if we can plug these remaining gaps.”

For legal reasons around the tendering process, the Combined Authority is not yet able to confirm which bus operators are the preferred bidder for each route and nor is it able to confirm the route timetables.

Operators and new timetables will be confirmed at the end of what is called a standstill period lasting 10 days.

This is a legal requirement attached to this tendering process with allows suppliers an opportunity to challenge any decision, meaning the names of the bus operators and timetables can only be made public from October 24.

Mayor Johnson said: “I am certainly very supportive of the outcomes of this tendering process.

“I know from all correspondence I’ve received just how much an impact this decision by Stagecoach has had on people.”

He added: “The bigger picture is that we are working on a longer-term bus strategy which will seek to deliver a sustainable bus network that is high quality, affordable, reliable and accessible to people right across the region.

“The status quo is not meeting people’s needs, and that’s why change is needed.”