News Snippets
Every Tuesday aside from any public holidays, Clowes Coaches runs a bus service between Leek and Congleton that has one morning outbound journey and one early afternoon return journey. Thought it also services places such as Endon and Biddulph, the service cannot be called regular and its forthcoming cancellation hopefully will not have very much of an impact. The service continues until the last Tuesday in April and no longer runs after that. Anyone who has uses it will need to use different means for their travel needs and I hope no one gets cut off completely.
Yesterday morning, an Arriva bus heading for Macclesfield on service 130 (there was a picture on the Manchester Evening News website showing the destination display of the bus before it was turned off and a replacement bus was seen going through Wilmslow on its way to the Macclesfield for the 10:10 journey to Manchester) was involved in an accident with several Stagecoach buses. It is something that leaves questions outstanding since the Arriva bus was leaving on time even if the timing surprised me; it was the 08:15 departure. No longer are we talking about near hourly or near half-hourly departures from Manchester Piccadilly all day because early morning Monday to Friday timings now are less regular than they once were.
Police have been working out what happened and have a definite line of enquiry. It is consistent with one witness account from Manchester Evening News that caught my eye:
“We were arriving at Piccadilly and we saw an Arriva bus pull out from the station going the other way. It was going quite fast then it hit us and the Magic Bus behind us.”
The possible cause that police are investigating is an accelerator failure on the Arriva bus and it fits in with the above. So, driver error looks unlikely although stopping a vehicle with this problem cannot be easy. It even might explain the side of the road on which the bus came to rest in another picture on the MEN website. That to some eyes would appear to be on the wrong side of the road and I have no doubt that police would explain that too if it were the case.
Thankfully, there were no serious injuries though travelling on a vehicle caught up in the accident cannot have been pleasant even if speeds most likely were low. Hopefully, the fifteen people who were injured will make a full recovery. Apart from avoiding this happening again, that very much is the most important consideration.
In the past, I have been on Arriva buses that have broken down or been driven in a reckless manner (some late-night journeys to Macclesfield from Crewe or Manchester come to mind) but things are much steadier on them these days and it’s best to keep it like that, mechanical failures notwithstanding. However, those previous experiences do not have you thinking good things when you first hear of accidents involving five buses
After the Stone consultation a little while back, Staffordshire County Council is running another one now for bus passengers in its Lichfield, Rugely and Tamworth areas. The supported services on which it needs feedback are listed on the consultation page and the associated form is very open ended. Like the Stone consultation, it is difficult to see what exactly is behind this but I hope it is nothing as what lay behind a similar exercise in Cheshire East in 2012. The deadline for the new consultation is just over three weeks away at February 28th.
Worcestershire County Council have been sent messages as to the unacceptability of bus service cuts and it got featured in a local newspaper article too. Apparently, comments have been collated although the Campaign for Better Transport is contesting the expectation that all comments have been included. Thursday will see a decision from the council’s cabinet and they have pledged not to break the law. In reality, that probably means that they want to avoid going where North Yorkshire Council now finds itself. Perhaps, greater legal protection for essential bus services is needed than is the case at present. The current government’s treatment of bus services shows that it will not do much for that cause though.
Cumbria County Council is talking about phasing in savings by looking at nudging bus operators to operate services without subsidies along with other options. £1m is set aside for that purpose though it would be better not to do anything too drastic. The overwhelming message to the council appears to be the unpopularity of what is proposed and it’s not just about bus services either. Interestingly, a majority appear to be willing to accept council tax rises in place of service cuts. It’s something that possibly should be considered more widely. The corollary to losing services to spending cuts is paying for them through tax, never a popular suggestion but that reality is facing us all now.
After looking as if they were going to have more savings than expected, the decision to reduce funding for buses in North Yorkshire is being reviewed at a meeting this coming Friday. There apparently was the sort of silo thinking that results in the passing of costs from one department to another that negates any savings in the first place. Hopefully, enough concerned members of the public can attend to make their feelings known. One service did survive on consultation but there have been saving reductions elsewhere and there now are concerns about a reduction in the independence of the elderly that forces them into care homes. That, of course, could increase council costs too so any saving on bus funding would be a false economy.
At the end of March, Monmouthshire County Council is taking over bus service between Chepstow and Monmouth via Trellech from Chepstow Classic at the end of March. Thankfully, the timetable is not changing but they are mounting a consultation regarding where to take things from here. Hopefully, we are talking about innovations and not cuts like other places.
Even if they could have been worse, the cuts agreed by North Yorkshire County Council still don’t look pretty. They got £2m of cuts when they were trying for £1.1m. Were we too weak in opposing them or how else did this happen? Are bus users seen as a soft touch for cuts like this too? Maybe we are seen just as a special interest group in comparison to others.
Lancashire has been having a consultation on cutting some of the £8m per annum that they spend on funding bus services. It ends this Friday (2014-01-17) after being open for more than a month. The survey is online so now’s anyone’s chance to ensure that nothing really important is lost. At least, they are planning on keeping most of the funding in place unlike other places but that leaves no room for complacency.
Staffordshire County Council is conducting a review of subsidised bus services in the Stone area of the county. On their website, there is a fairly open-ended form to complete that lists the affected services and you have until tomorrow to complete it. Only by doing so, you can prevent something very drastic from happening.