On Trains & Buses

Worcestershire County County Council wants to save £3m on bus service support and is having a consultation on this. The proposals look very severe so, in the associated questionnaire, the list of affected bus services is a long one. Anyone that wishes to feedback on this needs to do it by 2014-01-17 and that’s only Friday week so there isn’t long left.

Cumbria County Council recently astonished me by stating that it has no statutory responsibility for funding socially necessary bus services when I thought otherwise. Other local authorities thankfully do admit to the need to ensure access to public bus services. Cumbria County Council, however, seems to be proposing the complete withdrawal of bus service subsidies altogether and going for community transport instead. That sounds extreme so I hope that those very much affected will give their views on the proposals before 2014-01-20, which only is next Monday week.

Thanks go to Stephen Down of Bus Services in York for supplying information on services in North Yorkshire that have been added to the Trunk Services and Local Services listings of assorted bus routes for England. Otherwise, the North York Moors would not have got the coverage that they deserve and that for the Yorkshire Dales was boosted deservedly too.

Staffordshire County Council are 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 next Friday to complete it (2014-01-10). Let’s hope that nothing drastic is planned but the opportunity for provision of feedback should not be lost either.

The North York Moors National Park Authority has said that Moorsbus is not returning in 2014 and that sounds disappointing. Instead, the plan to have more targeted bus services in place of the network that ran during the high season every year. A campaign has been set up to bring back the Moorsbus network in some form and there was a meeting at the end of November 2013 to discuss the matter. Hopefully, something can be done to address the loss in an era when bus services appear to be in decline just like the railways were thirty years ago.

During the autumn of 2013, North Yorkshire County Council proposed considerable cuts to bus service funding and asked for public comment. Thankfully, the proposals were rolled back a little which service 74 between Ilkley and Grassington continuing, albeit with only three journeys each way a day every Monday to Saturday apart from bank holidays. To see even that when the council saying that bus services used for leisure were not a priority for council funding is a relief.

Unlike Moorsbus, there are a number of campaign groups in the Yorkshire Dales such as DalesBus, Friends of DalesBus and DalesConnect. Maybe their actions reduced what is coming, and the details are in the document used for council discussions on the last Thursday before Christmas. There is a blog collecting walking outings in the Yorkshire Dales too if you would like to see what’s possible with public transport.

Amazingly, Cumbria County Council has stated that it has no statutory responsibility for funding bus services (others thankfully do admit to the need to ensure access to public bus services) and seems to be proposing the complete withdrawal of bus service subsidies altogether and going for community transport instead. That sounds extreme so I hope that those very much affected will give their views on the proposals before 2014-01-20.

A few years ago, it was possible on Sundays to get from Stockport to Derby by bus with a change in Leek. First, we lost the Stockport to Leek portion a few years ago and that from Leek to Derby was lost recently. From the end of January, the section from Ashbourne to Derby is set to return with the introduction of a new timetable for Trent Barton’s SWIFT service. Any reversal of service cuts is a good thing that we need to see more often than we do.

First are overhauling their bus fare and ticket offerings in Cornwall. Simplification and price increases are a feature of the new package though some may see reductions too. Either way, it’s a case of all change from 2014-01-05.

Monmouthshire bus service details are to be found on their timetables page. On there, there are links to the service levels for supported services from Christmas Eve through to the second day of the new year. as well as last running times on both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve for these. What is notable is the lack of evening services for all apart from service 69 between Chepstow and Monmouth.