Clean, green all-electric buses heading for Northampton...but not until late 2026

Council chiefs have confirmed Northampton will be waiting more than two years for the first electric buses to arrive.

West Northamptonshire’s Tory-controlled cabinet last week hailed a £9.4million Government investment for the authority and bus operator Stagecoach as “a real game-changer” promising it would “soon see electric buses as part of a more sustainable public transport network.”

Details of the plan to introduce 51 new vehicles on 16 routes in Northampton revealed: “The new buses and charging infrastructure costing around £28m will now be commissioned and should join the Stagecoach fleet by late 2026.”

Stagecoach has already rolled out electric buses in nearby Cambridge and Oxford while Coventry is on target to achieve its ambition of an all-electric bus fleet on its roads by 2025.

Cllr Phil Larratt, West Northamptonshire cabinet member for Environment, Transport, Highways and Waste, said: “This is fantastic news for our residents. Securing this funding is a brilliant achievement and I’m extremely grateful to the team, including Stagecoach, who put the bid together and to the Government for this vital funding.

“Electric buses are not cheap, and the costs are such that Stagecoach would not have been able to invest to this level without support. This will be a real game-changer in our work towards net zero and improving sustainability across West Northamptonshire.”

Adding electric buses to the Stagecoach network will help reduce carbon emissions and pollution in Northampton, which currently has six Air Quality Management Areas. West Northamptonshire gets the largest slice of £143m going from the Department for Transport’s Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas 2 initiative to 25 schemes across the East Midlands.

Stagecoach Midlands managing director, Mark Whitelock, said: "This is a really positive step forward in helping to reduce carbon emissions and deliver cleaner air for those in our communities, building on the funding already made available to support bus services through the £2 fare cap.

“We look forward to working with West Northamptonshire Council and partners to deliver our ambitions for a thriving bus service that supports local communities."

Transport Secretary Mark Harper said: “This latest investment into our bus fleet comes on top of the £3.5billion we have invested into our bus network since 2020, protecting and improving bus routes into 2025 as well as extending the £2 bus fare cap until the end of 2024, made possible by reallocated HS2 funding.”

Earlier this month, Stagecoach confirmed the first delivery of 55 electric double-deckers ready to enter service in Oxford while around one-third of the operator’s fleet in Cambridge has been battery-powered since June 2023.

Coventry, where services are operated in partnership with National Express, has had electric buses since 2020 with 80 percent of its fleet zero-emission since June 2023 as part of the West Midlands Combined Authority’s £150m project to create the UK’s first all-electric bus city by 2025.

The full list of routes which will be covered by the new electric buses is as follows:

1 - Northampton-Rectory Farm

2 - Northampton-Rectory Farm

3 - Northampton-Camp Hill

4 - Northampton-Kingsthorpe

5/9/9A/15 - Northampton-Duston/Southfields

7 - Northampton-Moulton Park

8 - Northampton-Kings Heath

11/11A - Northampton-Grange Park

12/12A - Northampton-East Hunsbury

14 - Northampton-Kingsthorpe

16 - Northampton-Ecton Brook