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Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire's service 552 at Arnside
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Tuesday, 3rd March sees an unusual, but welcome, development in the District's bus network, with the introduction of a new bus service linking Arnside and Silverdale with Morecambe.
Once upon a time the market-day bus was a focal point of village life, with villagers taking advantage of the once-or-twice weekly bus to visit a nearby town and its market. Such services were perhaps not as common in Lancashire as they were in more rural counties, where every market town of any size would have a complete network of once or twice-weekly services bringing shoppers in from all over the surrounding district.
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| The market bus from Capenwray to Lancaster in 1980 |
Even so, the market bus was not completely unknown in this part of the world. Garstang had a small
network linking places such as Scorton, Calder Vale and Oakenclough with its markets, whilst Lancaster had buses bringing passengers from places such as Capenwray, Abbeystead, Quernmore and Dolphinhome. The growth of car ownership and the changing nature of the population in rural areas brought about a gradual decline and the eventual disappearance of once-weekly buses. Indeed, Lancashire County Council's policy on bus service support seems to be that unless there is enough demand for a five or six day a week service, villages won't get one at all.
Morecambe's Festival Market is well known as an attraction for locals and visitors alike and from this week it will be served (along with Morrsion's across the road) by its own "market-day bus".
Why Morecambe?
Last year, Stagecoach withdrew its six-day-a-week service between Arnside and Kendal, following the loss of an associated school contract that helped make it viable. After a short period during which local inhabitants were left dependent on community transport, local operator Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire stepped in to restore a proper bus service to Kendal, but running on only three days of the week largely to coincide with the street markets at Kendal (Wednesday) and Milnthorpe (Friday).
The revived service proved more successful than hoped and has encouraged the company to expand. However, rather than just provide more buses on the same route it has taken the more imaginative (but riskier?) approach of serving new destinations.
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| A KLCH bus at Kirkby Lonsdale Market Place |
A new service 551 will link Arnside and Milnthorpe with Kirkby Lonsdale on Thursdays, which is market day in that town. Whilst on Tuesdays, starting on 3rd March, Morecambe and its market will be served from Arnside and Silverdale by service 550, which will also call at Crag Bank in Carnforth, restoring a service to that part of the town. Although Arnside and Silverdale once enjoyed regular services to Lancaster, the BUG wonders whether this is the first time they have enjoyed a direct service to Morecambe.
The Group congratulates Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire for its initiative, especially as the service is being provided without any financial support from Lancashire or Cumbria County Councils, and hopes that it will be a success. But we also hope the company won't think it churlish of us to point out that those hopes might have a greater chance of coming to fruition if it put details of the new services up on its website!
To save them the trouble we'll do it here:
A History Lesson
You may wonder why a small operator like Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire should have bus services numbered in the 500s, but its all down to history. The major operator in this part of the world in the pre-Stagecoach era was Ribble Motor Services, based in Preston but serving a huge area stretching from the Mersey to the Solway. At some time in the 60s or 70s it renumbered all its services on an area basis, with those in our part of the world recieving numbers in the 500 series. Stagecoach has since renumbered its Lancaster area services but the 555 from Lancaster to Keswick has survived (no one dare change it!) and its interesting to see that other operators see value in using the numbers in the old sequence, even when they don't have to.
