After next to four years of this site being on WordPress.com, I decided that it was time to go independent with it. If you have been here before, then you shouldn’t see too much changes in appearance apart from a restructuring of content.
Wanting to have this as more of website with a blog attached was the reason for the move. WordPress still powers things behind the scenes but having more more control that I can achieve the aim of having something that collates longer living travel information as well as new and views on current events. Experiences will continue to feature too as things go from here.
My hope now is that this builds as a public transport information for Cheshire East and beyond. Wherever things go, I hope that they will continue to have value for you. If you have any suggestions, just let me know. Freedom from the constraints of where this thing used to may allow them to become a reality.
Yesterday, I found a sign attached to a bus shelter on Churchill Way in Macclesfield calling for support for a campaign to convince Cheshire East Council to retain its financial support of the Monday to Saturday evening bus services between the town and nearby Bollington. The campaign seems to be co-ordinated by Bollington Town Council and has made the front page of the Macclesfield Express too.
That recites arguments about the town being cut off in the evenings and other places are facing the same fate in Cheshire East too. The 130 Macclesfield to Manchester (Parr’s Wood only at times) service was not mentioned in the article, but its Monday to Saturday evening journeys are to lose support too and more places are affected by that decision as will the planned cuts to Sunday evening bus services on service 38 between Macclesfield and Crewe.
Once upon a time, it was possible to talk of making more of an effort to encourage folk to use buses with there being so much of a sense of threat to the continued operation of services. However, that that hasn’t happened is now endangering their continued existence due to dependence on the public purse and maybe the livelihoods of those who need the services for getting to and from work. Some possibly could be operated on a commercial basis and that may happen yet though this is a scary way of finding out which services are or are not sustainable.
The other matter that gives me pause for thought is the way in which the consultation was carried out by the council. On a previous time, there were suggested cuts and the public were invited to respond. The latest review didn’t take that format but rather a survey of bus usage and a series of daytime roadshows, probably held when some who depend on the service whose withdrawal is proposed were at work.
A better way would have been to do that usage survey, held those roadshows when working folk could make them and to have feedback on any proposals. However, it seems that the next stop for the proposals will be a Cheshire East Council cabinet meeting on October 18th without any feedback from the public. The way it has been done looks like an attempt to railroad the cuts in order ensure that they get carried out.
Of course, there still is the matter of local democracy and local folk emailing the likes of Bill Livesley (one of Bollington’s Cheshire East Councillors) to register their opinions on what is planned. With the number of services likely to be affected, it looks as if a fair few councillors need contacting over the matter.
Also, the sum of money that is involved is not that large at around £500,000 and the current budget stands at around £2.2m, again not a large amount given some of the sums that you hear in the media these days. However, the council is seeing cuts in its funding from central government, so I suppose that savings have to be found somewhere. Also, I am left wondering if a moderate increase in council tax would not help with this though many in the borough probably do not fancy the idea of paying more tax and the council is controlled by the Conservatives.
In addition, there is the issue of free travel for older residents and what that is costing. Apparently, Cheshire East’s population is set to get older, so this problem will increase. In fact, some have gone with the idea of the pass entitling you to reduced fares throughout the day and not just prior to 09:30 as is the case at present. With older people being more likely to vote in elections, this is a knotty problem that is set to stay with us for a while yet.
All in all, the consultation was well and good, but I reckon that it could have involved the public more. Having some public comment on the proposed cuts may make it a two stage process, but it has to be better than hearing about cuts without much of an opportunity to provide feedback on them. Last year, there was even less involvement so what we have this year has been an improvement, though there is room for more. Our austere age is presenting some awkward choices for us, but we need to be careful about the loss of bus services. Maybe we should make more use of them to avoid what is happening though the unsettling aspect of the whole business well may have the opposite effect, particularly when we need to encourage less car usage because of road congestion and other sensible reasons.
Cheshire East Council’s Public Transport Consultation has yielded its results and they don’t look all that pretty. Many services face extinction and it could happen just before Christmas according to the proposed timetable. Details of the affected services are divided into schoolday and non-schoolday categories and there’s overview of services receiving financial support too.
While it is a relief to see some pivotal services saved from cuts, there is a surprise too in the form of financial support being recommended for service 27 between Macclesfield and Knutsford. From next month, I was led to believe that was becoming a commercial operation. Maybe that’s like the bus stop sign professing the return of the sadly defunct Sunday journeys of service 108 between Stockport, Macclesfield and Leek following their demise last year. That sign in Oakgrove turned out to be incorrect so it might be the same with the aforementioned recommendation too. Events may have overtaken the consultation.
Returning to the planned losses, school services seem to be taking quite a hit again this year and it looks as if even more of them will be affected than last year. Some non-school services such as the 390 between Poynton, Bramhall and Stockport or the 391 between Middlewood, Poynton and Stockport face total withdrawal altogether. There are more services facing cuts than these but I have selected several for special mention below some that stand out for me. One only can hope that no more savings are needed but it could prove a forlorn one again in 2013.
Service 108: Macclesfield-Leek-Ashbourne
Friday and Saturday only evening journeys, one morning journey from Leek to Macclesfield and Fallibroome High School and afternoon journey from the latter to Sutton: the first of these would be a loss for anyone fancying a day out walking in the Staffordshire Moorlands and Derbyshire Dales but a journey a few years ago had few passengers on it until Macclesfield so these were vulnerable in an era when public spending is under pressure.
Service 378: Wilmslow-Handforth-Stockport
The proposed cuts would leave only a Monday to Saturday daytime service with train travel being needed at other times. This looks like a stark option so axes are in action here.
Service 130: Macclesfield-Wilmslow-Manchester
Monday to Saturday evening journeys between Macclesfield and Didsbury are set for the chop. Sadly, they were seen as marginal during the last round of cuts and seem to be a target this time too. It makes me wonder how anyone working late at Alderley Park (there are some) is supposed to get home; it sounds like more expensive taxis are set to be all that they have if the service goes.
Early Saturday morning services are to be another casualty and it seems that train travel is being cited as an alternative to both. That argument has appeared before but it means that so many spots currently being served will lose what they have. This also was one of the services attracting the most public input and nearly a fifth of those were using it to get to work!
Services 5 & 6: Weston Estate Circular (Macclesfield)
Service 9: Moss Rose (Macclesfield)
Service 10A: Macclesfield-Bollington
Though these are three different services, they face the same cut: the loss of Monday to Saturday evening services. Interestingly, the 10A Sunday service came off council support last year and is run commercially now so there may be hope for some of these journeys. Otherwise, it’s a case of using the more expensive taxi option or walking (always of no cost, of course).
Service 38: Macclesfield-Crewe
It’s the Sunday evening services that are in the firing line here. There was a time when I found these useful though they weren’t so well used so I can see why they are a target. Around ten years ago, there was a proposal to axe all evening journeys on this service but that thankfully never came to pass.
Service 84: Crewe-Nantwich-Chester
This is another trunk service facing the axing of evening services and it seems to be all four of them on every day of the week. Again, train travel has been suggested as an alternative but it still looks like an austere proposition.
Around two years ago, I was making use of Arriva’s m-Ticket app on a Blackberry Curve 8520 that I then owned. Apart from a certain sluggishness due to the hardware and its 2G internet connection, it worked fine until I forgot the PIN that it needed. From then on, I returned to paper bus tickets and stuck with them ever sense.
However, curiosity and a better phone have me having another go. This time it’s from Google’s Play Store from which I got the app. It remains free of charge and seems so that the world of Android and a HTC Desire S armed with 3G connectivity have made for a smoother and faster experience. The fact that it is a touchscreen phone allows the developers to make a better interface too.
Also, there are some savings to be had. For instance, a North West four weekly ticket costs £56.70 and a day ticket for the same area is £4.20. The paper counterpart to the latter is £4.60 and four weekly tickets will set you back £72.00. Interestingly, weekly tickets cost the same via the app as they do from a bus driver.
To work the app needs personal details such as name, address and date of birth. For payment, you can store a credit (or debit) card number in the app with the card’s security code and a PIN provided by Arriva needed for any transactions. Topping up beforehand is another option if you don’t like the idea of card details on a phone.
With the app, you can see ticket prices before you buy and activate any that you buy price to use. There are no single journey tickets on here so they need to be bought from a bus driver. That must make the app easier to maintain for the developers and means that the range of tickets is easier to browse. While doing, I found some for areas that I might be inclined to visit such as Northumberland’s coast. It’s good to see what’s out there ahead of time instead of holding up a bus trying to get the information. That it’s all doable on the move only helps too.
This time around, that PIN will be stored somewhere for safekeeping and my hope is that my time with mobile bus ticketting will continue longer than it did two years ago. It might surprise you now but I had put this option out of my mind until I spotted someone else showing a phone to a bus driver on getting aboard. That was enough to make me go investigating again.
The first change is the service number which will become 27B. From the start of the month, service numbers will be 27 and 27A. Quite why they are changing like this is beyond me since just calling it the 27 would do just fine and that’s what I’d keep calling it. Maybe the amended numbering might be caused by goings on in the Northwestern Traffic Commissioner’s office.
More importantly, the 08:30 Monday to Friday journey (or 08:25 as it says on the Cheshire East Council website) from Macclesfield now serves Alderley Park, a good idea given recent loadings but one is left wondering if a break in service will do it harm. Midday Monday to Friday services will call no longer at Alderley Park so any lunchtime journeys to shops will involve a walk out of the site to the road. The same situation would apply to anyone wanting to get to Knutsford from after 16:30, a nuisance given the onset of longer hours of darkness.
On one hand, there seems to be an air of greater sense regarding the timetable though anyone working at Alderley Park clearly loses out more than they did with the October 6th changeover to commercial working. The later alterations come into force on October 29th and they don’t have any impact on the Saturday timetable. Could there be more to follow after user feedback? That would be interesting to see. Hopefully, we won’t see that 18:40 journey from Knutsford disappear; it deserves to succeed.
Posted on October 6th, 2012