Leicester bus operators can bid for up to £5m to go electric by 2028

Bus operators inside the Leicester Buses One Network Partnership can now bid for a share of up to £5m in grant funding to convert diesel fleets to electric, covering both vehicles and depot charging. The city council will use the money to underwrite up to 75% of the cost gap between a new diesel and electric bus, plus up to 75% of the charging infrastructure needed to run them, per Leicester City Council.

The city is already most of the way there: 190 electric buses are running today, about 75% of the local network, with 60 more due into service by March 2027. This latest funding round should cover up to 30 further vehicles. Operators have signed up to run electric-only services from April 2028, two years ahead of the government's target, alongside a further £75m investment the partnership plans to deliver into local bus services.

Why this matters: for operators inside the partnership, this is capital funding worth chasing now rather than waiting for the partnership's April 2028 electric-only commitment to kick in - grant rounds like this rarely stay open once allocations are spoken for, and the earlier the switch, the more runway to sort depot power upgrades before everyone else is queuing for the same grid capacity.