Councillors express frustration over buses in Grimsby area
Councillors have expressed frustration with buses in North East Lincolnshire
Last updated 15th Mar 2026
Councillors have expressed frustration with buses in North East Lincolnshire, and lack of apparent progress on having electric buses. Stagecoach East Midlands are to be invited to a council scrutiny panel in future to discuss “what does a modern bus service for North East Lincolnshire look like?”, including EV buses.
At North East Lincolnshire Council’s transport, infrastructure and strategic housing scrutiny panel meeting this month, councillors received a report on moves to get EV buses to the borough. A council and Stagecoach bid in 2020/21 for £23.5m Government cash to electrify the local fleet was unsuccessful.
While feedback was provided, the borough is otherwise no closer to seeing electric buses. In fact, the council report details Stagecoach sends on buses from other areas it covers to the borough, resulting in buses ranging from seven to 22 years old locally.
The managing director of Stagecoach East Midlands said it is always happy to meet elected officials to discuss how services can be improved still further, and it is “well positioned” to have all zero emissions buses by 2035.
‘We just get hand-me downs’
Cllr Karl Wilson (Labour and Co-op – West Marsh Ward) called the report on getting EV buses “disappointing”. He said, “It’s almost three years since I brought this up to this scrutiny panel and there’s no progress on it really, is there?”
“The report also highlights that we just get hand-me downs for buses, there’s no priority for our area to have a modern bus fleet.” He queried whether the council should approach the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire and combined authority, set to gain new transport powers from April 1, “to look at creating some bus operators or approach different bus operators.”
Officers welcomed the suggestion to engage with the combined authority and Mayor. Councillors have been offered a visit to Hull once electric buses are running there.
Cllr Robson Augusta (Labour – Park) observed an advantage for Hull was having two operators competing. In North East Lincolnshire, “Stagecoach have, realistically, a monopoly.”
“We have the hand-me downs from other authorities. We do not want to be left behind with electrification.” In response, Stagecoach said it is “well positioned to fulfil our commitment to having a zero-emissions fleet by 2035.”
“I challenge strongly about the fleet side of things,” said Cllr Stewart Swinburn (Conservative – Immingham), portfolio holder for housing, infrastructure and transport. “They’re under no illusions that we’re concerned about it.”
Paul Evans, council assistant director of infrastructure, said Stagecoach’s existing Grimsby depot does not have capacity for electric buses, so a new town centre site will need to be found. He added Stagecoach are also very keen to introduce EV buses in the area, “it’s just that there are constraints”.
Stagecoach statement
“We are proud to run services for our loyal customers in Grimsby and the wider region, and our talented and experienced team work with our fleet to ensure that we can offer the reliability and comfort that our customers have come to expect,” said Matt Cranwell, Stagecoach East Midlands managing director.
He said, for example, recently released regional figures show it runs 99.56 per cent of the miles it is timetabled to run. “This means that we are unable to operate only one in every 225 scheduled trips – and nearly half of this very small amount of mileage lost is due to factors outside our control, like congestion and road diversions.
“We will always be happy to meet with our local Elected Officials to discuss how services can be improved still further. There will always be challenges to overcome, and we will be happy to tackle them in partnership, but we are well positioned to fulfil our commitment to having a zero-emissions fleet by 2035.
“We take our commitment to protect our local environment very seriously.” He said last week, global consultants CPP awarded Stagecoach an A- rating for climate change and B for water security, maintaining its ratings for the second consecutive year.
“This was out of more than 22,100 companies that reported.” More than 15 per cent of Stagecoach’s 8,300-strong fleet is now electric.