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The Highest Point Festival Bus in Dalton Square (c) Alex Dhawan
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When, in late April, Lancashire County Council decided to close Common Garden Street for overnight roadworks, both Stagecoach and the Bus Users' Group were told that buses would not be allowed to use nearby Dalton Square for an alternative stop and that no temporary stop could be allowed on the A6 Thurnham Street either, meaning that passengers faced a lengthy walk to either the bus station or the RLI. This was despite the fact that all sides of the square are public highway and that no prohibitions for use by PSVs or other vehicles apply.
A council spokesperson said at the time that this was to "prevent damage to the historic road surface of the square", whilst also admitting that buses "could" inconvenience drivers using the handful of car parking spaces there. (In other words they might have to wait a few seconds before the bus moved off). All this despite the fact that the road closure wouldn't start until 21.00hrs and due to university holidays only a small number of journeys (about a dozen) would call there.
However, ten days later the Square was the official terminus (and not just a calling point) for a special bus service to the Lancaster Food Festival, held at the Leisure Park with buses using the stop every 30 minutes for three days! At the time, the BUG speculated that this was because the Food Festival was seen as an asset to the city, which the normal bus service apparently isn't and that festival-goers somehow deserved a better service than ordinary bus passengers. (Read our report here)
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The Food & Drink Festival Signs from the May Bank Holiday
Service were still in place and came in handy for the Highest Point bus!
The pole used to carry a bus stop falg and timetable case until this
was removed by the county council just before the closure of Common
Garden Street in April (c) Alex Dhawan
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Another weekend - another festival, and last weekend saw the return of the "Highest Point" music festival to the city's Williamson Park. Car parking at the park is very, very limited and so we were not surprised to see that a special bus service was being provided, particularly as the Park itself has only a half-hourly bus on service 18 with no evening or Sunday journeys and even that was only grudgingly provided after twelve months' campaigning by our Group.
What did surprise us though was the "Official Pick Up Point" in the City Centre. Yes, you've guessed it: Dalton Square again! And what surprised us even more was the bus operator providing the link: Stagecoach! The Food Festival service had been run by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire, using small single-deck buses and we thought that either the use of small buses had been required by the council or that perhaps KLCH had not been made aware of the (unauthorised) prohibition.
But Stagecoach had been told back in April that they could not use the sqaure and as the photo shows were using full-size buses. The number of journeys using the Square over the two weekends was well into three figures and makes a nonsense of the council's view that the road surface is being damaged.
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| The service was very popular, but doesn't appear to have damaged the "historic road surface" too much. Drivers of those few cars parked at the top end of the square might have to wait for a bus to move before entering or leaving a space, but cars of course don't damage road surfaces - even those that weren't designed for them. (c) Alex Dhawan |
The council has some explaining to do, but then so does Stagecoach, who apparently acquiesced without thought for its passengers when service buses were involved, whilst being more than happy to use the square for a special service when a bit of extra cash would be coming its way.
This is just one of the questions we will be raising on Wednesday when the company's Operations Director, Tom Waterhouse will be at our meeting, details of which are on the left sidebar.
