On Trains & Buses

Cheshire East Bus Funding Cuts: A little good news from Arriva

Posted on November 14, 2012

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After D&G’s service withdrawals, there is a sliver of good news from Arriva regarding town services in Macclesfield and the same applies to those linking the town with nearby Bollington too. The company is going to give running Monday to Saturday evening services on a commercial basis a go. The timetables for services 5 and 6 are set to change and we have yet to see what they will involve for residents of Weston and Upton Priory. The equivalent journeys to Moss Rose and Bollington are set to stay unaffected for now.

Of course, it is over to us to make use of what survives or it’ll get the axe too. That we are seeing an attempt to stick with offering services at all is a bit of brightness amid what else is happening on our patch and Arriva deserves some credit for that. It would have been rough for Macclesfield to lose town services when Knutsford is to see them continued unaffected and with council funding too. That prospect is not set to come upon us in January anyway and it will be patronage that drives whatever follows next.

However, there has been no news from Arriva today about the soon to be unsupported early Saturday morning 130 journeys from Macclesfield to Manchester though. Macclesfield and Wythenshawe depots seem to be operating separately so we still have to wait to see. Could something be happening to 130 evening services as well? There may be some good news for bus users around Macclesfield but I am not holding my breath just yet. A little more patience is needed but there’s not so much remaining to be revealed at this point. Once all is stable again, it might be time to treat Macclesfield to a summary of its public network like what I have done already for Knutsford and Wilmslow. It looks as if any remaining bus services could do with any extra publicity that I can provide.

Update 2012-11-19: It seems that a bit of arm-twisting was involved in keeping the evening services between Macclesfield and Bollington going, according to last week’s Macclesfield Express. Seeing some community intervention has to be a good thing and the next steps would be better promotion of the service. That Macclesfield town services are continuing too may be a result of the same type of pressure but there was no mention of that in the article. One only can wonder if greater community campaigning would have helped the soon to be lost evening journeys on the 130 (Macclesfield to Manchester), 38 (Macclesfield to Crewe) and 84 (Crewe to Chester). Maybe that’s something that we need to start, as belated as it would be at this stage.