Following recent announcements by central government and by Lancashire County Council (read again here) funding for bus service support in the county is due to rise by just over £2.25m in the financial year startimng in April. Of this, £750,000 is coming as a grant from government and £1.5m from the Council's own resources.
The government money requires a "Statement of Intent" to be submitted by the county council by 13th March telling the government what, in outline terms, it intends to spend the money on. This could be improvements to existing bus services or completely new ones. The Council's own extra funding comes with no limitations.
Under the terms of the grant, which is being given to all local transport authorities in England outside London, the council must show that it has consulted with MPs and with local people. However, Councils are allowed to use the results of past consultation excercises and need not undertake new ones. In view of the limited time available to bid for the money, Lancashire CC has indicated that it will rely on views already expressed by residents and its outstanding list of public and councillor requests for service improvements.
Nevertheless, Lancaster Bus Users' Group is anxious to ensure that the Lancaster District gets its fair share of the money and has reached agreement with the County Council that we can submit ideas for service improvements for consideration by the Public Transport Team.
What Did We Ask For?
Service 18
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| The Group organised an official launch for service 18 |
Our top priority is to ensure the continuation of service 18, the "East Lancaster Circular". Serving Moorlands, Williamson Park, Standen Gate and Lancaster Farms Prison this is the only service over a large area of the east of the city. The Bus Users' Group fought long and hard to get it established (read again here), and was only successful after we discovered the existance of a large pot of money that the developers of the Standen Gate housing complex has been required to pay to the council to provide a bus service, but which the council was intending to use largely for other purposes!
That original funding is now almost exhausted and with no provision in Lancashire's core budget for service 18 its future looked doubtful. Now that the Council's coffers are at least partially refilled it should be able to support this service for the forseeable future.
Evenings and Sundays
The County Council last reduced its budget for bus services in 2016. At the time, as well as withdrawing lesser-used daytime routes it introduced a new policy of ceasing to offer support for any evening or Sunday buses that bus companies could not provide on a commercial basis. Many journeys were withdrawn throughout the Lancaster District at this time. We are now asking Lancashire to restore evening and Sunday buses on the following routes:
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| Evenings and Sundays in the Lune Valley? |
- Between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale
- Between Lancaster and Halton
- Between Lancaster City Centre and Ridge, Marsh and Vale estates
- Between Lancaster and Blackpool (evenings)
New Services
Skerton to Morecambe
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| Torrisholme Railway Bridge - Single deckers only! |
In January 2019, Stagecoach diverted its commercial buses between Lancaster and Morecambe that had previously operated along the full length of Torrisholme Road to run via Carlisle Bridge instead following the route's conversion to double-deckers and the consequent need to avoid Torrisholme railway bridge. This broke the long-standing link between Skerton and Morecambe.
We have therefore asked the County Council to find a way of restoring this link, possibly by reaching agreement with Stagecoach to divert service 6A, which would also provide a link from Skerton to ASDA and White Lund. Although Stagecoach has previously told us that it did not consider such a diversion to be commercially viable, the application of a little of the council's new-found wealth may go some way to "oiling the wheels".
Lancaster Quay
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| New Quay Road |
In recent years a large area of housing has been developed along New Quay Road and Cotton Square, most of which has no public transport provsion. The Bus Users' Group has worked with Stagecoach to agree a suitable route for a new or diverted service but the company has yet to make any proposals for a commercial service. This is another example of where public money could be used to kick-start a service and provide the residents, who appear to have no shopping, medical or leisure facilities, with an alternative to the car.
Further Improvements
Even £2.25m won't be enough even to restore all the bus services lost in 2016 when the county was spending £7m a year on bus support. In recognition of this - and also in cognizance of the possibility of even more money coming from government in future years (read again here) we have concentrated initially on the measures above. However, we have also submitted a list of suggested improvements that, whilst they may not be possible at the moment, could be taken into account when additional funding is available.
These are:
- Restore the full evening and Sunday service between Overton, Morecambe and Carnforth
- Later evening buses on service 555 between Lancaster, Carnforth and Kendal
- A bus connection to Heysham Port to connect with the late Manx boat sailing, for which there is presently no pubic transport link.
- Extension of some, or all, of the Lune Valley services to Lancaster railway station
- Support for the Summer Sunday Dales Bus services to Skipton, Malham and Richmond, which currently rely on voluntary fundraising from the public by the Dales Bus organisation.
- and lastly (for the time being): improving publicity for bus services by bringing back the previous series of all-operator bus network maps at one time produced by the county council.
