A BID to make Oxford the first city in England to have an all-electric fleet of buses has been made, after worries it could be scuppered by technical details.

Oxfordshire County Council has submitted a bid for the all-electric bus towns and cities fund, which would help to convert all the buses in the city run by Stagecoach and the Oxford Bus Company.

When the funding was discussed at council cabinet meeting last month, there were fears that the two bus companies business cases setting out how the money would help them convert their fleet would cost more than the £50 million on offer.

READ AGAIN about the original funding bid discussion here

The council was faced with a June 4 deadline to discuss the costs with the two bus companies, and managed to submit a bid for £47.3m of funding ahead of this.

A county council spokesman said: "We can confirm that Oxfordshire County Council together with Oxford City Council and bus operators (including Stagecoach and the Oxford Bus Company) did submit a bid to become Britain’s first all-electric bus city last week.

"The bid we submitted was in fact slightly lower than the £50 million and came in at £47.3 million."

Alongside the electric bus bid, the county council also made four bids totalling £20 million to bring ‘on demand’ bus services to rural areas of the county, similar to the Uber-style PickMeUP service soon to finish in Oxford.