The Mystery of the Missing Crossing

Sometime last year, the building work at the corner of Wood Street and Damside Street, on the approach to Lancaster Bus Station, reached a point where it became necessary to erect scaffolding. The scaffolding effectively blocked one side of the zebra crossings on both streets, which between them formed the recommended safe walking route between the bus station and the city centre.

The blocked crossing on Damside Street

and Wood Street

When it was obvious that the works were long-term and with the danger and inconvenience to users of the bus station obvious, the Bus Users' Group tried to get something done.

But our efforts were thwatred by council bureaucracy and buck-passing!  Pedestrian crossings are normally the responsibility of the Highway Authority, which in Lancaster is Lancashire County Council.  The county, however, claimed that because building developement was the cause of the blockage it was a planning matter - and planning is a City Council responsibility.  When we approached the City council, they told us they had no responsibility for crossings and referred us back to the County!

Fortunately, the Bus Users' Group has within its ranks a number of city and county councillors who were able to take up the case for us "from the inside". Initially, they too appeared to have difficulty in establishing where responsibility lay, and in the meantime the contractors working on the building took some rather unofficial action themselves...

A series of yellow dots appeared on the road at the place where most people cross the road.

Join the dots for the alternative route.

And safety advice appeared in the latest hi-tech format on Damside Street...

                 

But eventually, after much to-ing and fro-ing and the intervention of County Councillor Lizzi Collinge, in January a temporary light-controlled crossing appeared and restored a safe walking route across Damside Street.

Job done!  Or so we thought

Now You See It.......

The new crossing was much appreciated by users, especially the elderley and those accompanying young children or with mobility problems. After a few days the timings were even re-set so that the lights changed to red almost instantly when the pedestrian button was pressed!  All was well - until sometime last week the whole crossing just disappeared!

Lizzi, being our best contact with the councils, kindly agreed to take up the matter  again, and guess what?....The County Council told her it was a Planning Matter and therefore the responsibility of the City Council. And, of course, the City Council said that as it was a highways matter, it was the County Council's problem!

Neither Lizzi nor the Bus Users' Group is giving in..and with the need for the crossing still evident we are doing our best to solve the mystery!

Return of the Market Day Bus

Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire's service 552 at Arnside

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.

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.

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:

550  Arnside and Silverdale to Morecambe

551 Arnside and Milnthorpe to Kirkby Lonsdale 

552 Arnside to Kendal

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.

What Do We Want? (And When Do We Want It?)!

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

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:

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

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

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.

When Do We Want It?

The money - both government and council - is available to spend from April 2020. However, requests and suggestions need to be evaluated (by a Public Transport Team at the Council greatly reduced in recent years); tenders drawn up, contracts awarded and a 70-day registration period complied with before any changes can be made.  It is unlikely therefore that any significant improvements will be seen much before the Autumn, but the BUG will be keeping an eye on things and we will let you know how things are progressing.