GREATER MANCHESTER can legally take the district’s bus services back into public ownership and control after years of chaos in the hands of privateers, a judge has ruled.

The ruling, which was hailed as a “massive victory” by transport campaigners, came at the Royal Courts of Justice on Wednesday following a judicial review brought by profiteering operators Stagecoach and Rotala.

Mr Justice Julian Knowles rejected the companies’ claims that public ownership was “irrational and unlawful.”