Andy Burnham has explained why Greater Manchester's buses bear the emblem of the worker bee.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), took over every service between September 2023 and January 2025. It was the first time every route in the city was publicly controlled since the 1980s, when buses were painted orange and brown.

After Mr Burnham announced his intention to take over services in 2021, speculation was rife over if they would return to the familiar GMTPE orange livery. Instead, buses were painted yellow and branded as the Bee Network.

And the reason why the bee was chosen has been revealed by the mayor. 

He said on Tuesday: "There's a reason why the bee is on the side of our buses. The bee is a symbol of a place that pulls together, works together, where nobody's more important than anyone else, but we've all got that responsibility to play our part, look after each other, that's Greater Manchester, that's who we are."

Andy Burnham spoke at the Mayor's Charity bus pull fundraiser (Image - GM Mayor's Charity)

Mr Burnham was speaking at the annual Greater Manchester Mayoral Charity's (GMMC) 'bus pull' fundraiser, where teams of five compete to pull a single-decker bus over 30 metres.

The mayor had a go at pulling a Bee Network bus himself, aided by GMMC boss Dr Fran Darlington-Pollock. The ex-Leigh MP has personally supported the charity by donating 15pc of his salary since became mayor in 2017, which means he donates around '£1,400 a month currently'.

"Why? Because I'm well paid and I can," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service at the Manchester Central convention centre event. 

"But it is also about not asking anyone here to do anything that I'm not prepared to do myself. It's about leading from the front, I guess and showing that this is a place where everyone does what they can and I can do that. I realise not everyone can do that.

"I can't say to Greater Manchester, let's make tackling homelessness and roughly be our priority if I'm not prepared to put my own shoulder behind the wheel, or get my own hands on the rope of the bus pull."

Andy Burnham and Fran Darlington-Pollock at the Greater Manchester Mayor's charity bus pull fundraiser (Image - GM Mayor's Charity)

One of his first big mayoral pledges was to eradicate homelessness by 2020, something he says he achieved by getting rough sleeper numbers 'into low double figures' that year.

However, rough sleeping is on the rise again, but numbers are half what they were at their nadir in 2017.

Dr Darlington-Pollock expected the event to raise in excess of £34,000 for the 'A Bed Every Night' scheme that gives rough sleepers somewhere to stay.

In recent months, she says more prevalent and obvious rough sleeping, like the Albert Square tent city, lead to 'more people being demonised in certain spaces and it does change the conversation'. 

She added: "We should be part of saying let's change it back because people who experience homelessness are just you or I, they're just the ones who have gone on a journey and no-one intervened. Other people have had that intervention."

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