The decision to leave the European Union has created an opportunity for manufacturers to collaborate and design a British double-decker steeped in traditional values. We preview this incredible plan.
First details are emerging of an ambitious government project — a new low cost standard design of double-decker — to protect domestic bus manufacturers following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.
It will be funded with some of the £350million a week that the Vote Leave campaign bus said could be spent on cherished priorities at home instead of being sent to Brussels. But in keeping with a policy of fiscal austerity, civil servants are reining in development costs by drafting regulations based closely on those still in ministerial files from the wartime utility double-decker programme of 1942-46.
They are advising one of the three Brexiteers in the cabinet, the foreign secretary Boris Johnson who, as project manager, has firm opinions on the quintessentially British features the vehicle should possess — and the European regulations on construction and use, noise and emissions, weights and dimensions that may now be ignored. As a former London mayor, he also has valuable experience of commissioni…
