Stagecoach Freezes Fares and Extends Young Persons' Dayrider Offer.

Stagecoach has announced that there will be NO increase to its bus fares in Cumbria and North Lancashire during 2016. Fares that last rose in March 2015 will remain unchanged for the rest of the year at least.

Also, the Young Persons' Dayrider ticket, giving unlimited travel for a day in the Bay Dayrider Zone for just £2, which was introduced on a trail basis in January, has now been made a permanent feature of the company's fares offer. Young Persons' Dayriders are available to anyone under 19 years of age and can be bought on the bus.

From Sunday 24th April, holders of  Young Persons' Dayriders will be able to "upgrade" them to allow travel throughout the Lancashire Dayrider zone for an extra £2 (i.e. at a fare of £4 for a ticket that costs £7.40 full price and which has not previously had a reduction for children). This ticket is advertised as being valid on all Stagecoach services in "Lancashire" although it's a version of "Lancashire" that includes Southport, Liverpool, Wigan and Bolton but not Manchester.  Ingleton and Kirkby Lonsdale however appear to have been given honorary "Lancashire" status as far as this ticket is concerned.

There doesn't appear to be a definitive map of the Lancashire Dayrider zone anywhere on Stagecoach's website but we have tracked down this unbelievably complex and user-unfriendly document on the Merseyside and South Lancs site. The Lancashire Dayrider is said to be Zone 12 (although zone 12 on the map excludes Southport and Liverpool - and for that matter Lancaster!)

Service 80 Re-routed in Hornby

Lancaster District Bus Users' Group is happy to have been able to assist residents in Hornby who found themselves inconvenienced by the latest round of changes to the village's bus service.

Prior to 3rd April service 80 (Lancaster to Ingleton) ran directly from Lancaster along the A683 to the village centre, whereas service 81 (Lancaster to Kirkby Lonsdale) diverted via the B6480 and Station Road and served a number of residential properties on the way. 

With service 81 now reduced to a two-hourly frequency some residents who were inconvenienced by the change approached the Bus Users' Group for help.

As the section of the A683 that the 80 was using was largely unpopulated the Group was happy to support the residents and to ask Stagecoach to re-route the service.

Although we have yet to receive a formal response from Stagecoach we have now been told by the residents that the 80 is already following the 81 route, just as they had requested. Regular passengers had even been approached by an inspector in Lancaster bus station and told of the change of route personally!

There obviously won't have been time to change the service registration and a look at Stagecoach's new map on their website suggests that this was always the intention anyway. Perhaps the message just didn't get through to the local staff,  but for whatever reason the residents are happy - as is the Bus Users' Group - and a big "Thank You" to Stagecoach for responding so quickly.

County Council "Ban" on NoW Cards - The Beginning of the End?

The "Northern Dalesman", otherwise known as services 830 / 832 between Lancaster, Ingleton, Hawes and Richmond is set to return for the summer on 1st May as part of the popular "Dales Bus" network of services in, to  and from the Yorkshire Dales.

This year, however, holders of the English National Concession Bus Pass - or "NoW Card" will have to pay to use it as Lancashire County Council has decided to exclude the service from the bus pass scheme.

  

When asked by the Bus Users' Group to explain their action, a  "Transportation Officer" from the Council responded that :

"the service is of limited use to Lancashire residents apart from allowing them to enjoy a day out in the Yorkshire Dales"!

This is , of course, a very worrying development.  If the County Council feels that NoW Cards should not be used to allow Lancashire residents to "enjoy a day out in the Yorkshire Dales" what is to stop them taking the view that they shouldn't be used for a day trip to the Lake District, to Blackpool or to anywhere else that takes their fancy?

In fact, the Concessionary Travel Act 2007 that set up the scheme does not state any journey purpose for which concessions should or should not be available, merely that they must be available on all registered local bus services.

 Amendments introduced by Regulations, in 2009, did allow local authorities to exclude any services provided "primarily for the purposes of tourism" from the scope of the scheme. The Regulations themselves, however, did not provide a definition of "tourism" and Guidance subsequently made available by the Department for Transport made it quite clear that the purpose of the change was to exclude only premium-fare services that provided an amenity element such as a commentary or tour.

Specifically the Guidance says:

   Government Response 30. We believe this proposal will only affect services which are clearly tourist sightseeing services. By this we mean the type of services which charge premium fares and may provide a commentary or tour.. .   The Department’s view is that this exemption would not in any way exclude normal local bus services that charge standard fares but which happen to stop at tourist or historic destinations.

The Northern Dalesman does not "charge premium fares" nor "provide a commentary or tour". Neither is it operated by "historic" vehicles. It is, however, "a normal bus service" and even if it does "happen to stop at tourist or historic destinations" then clearly the Department does not expect it to be excluded from the bus pass scheme.

The Bus Users' Group has therefore formally asked Lancashire County Council to change its policy, to recognise that the Northern Dalesman service does meet the criteria, as expected by the Department for Transport, for inclusion in the NoW Card scheme and to make NoW Cards available on the service.

Let Us Know How the Cuts Affect You.

Service 5B: One of several to be withdrawn

With the new bus timetables being introduced on Sunday, 3rd April Lancaster District Bus Users' Group is seeking to learn the effects on local residents.

The new timetables include cuts to evening and Sunday services to the Ridge, Vale and Marsh areas of the city as well as to nearby towns and villages such as Glasson, Cockerham, Pilling, Caton, Brookhouse, Hornby, Wray, Wennington, Tunstall, Melling, Kirkby Lonsdale, Carnforth,Warton, Yealand and Silverdale. Evening services between Lancaster and Blackpool are also withdrawn and the villages of Gressingham, Arkholme and Whittington are left without any effective bus service.

The Group is already aware of many people who will find it difficult to continue to travel to and from work as well as to get to the theatres and cinemas in Lancaster and to visit friends and family. Also affected are people returning home from longer-distance trips by train who will be unable to reach Lancaster in time for their last bus home.

If you are affected by the cuts, or know someone who is, please let the Group know, either by leaving a comment below or emailing us on lancasterbususers@gmail.com.  This will help us to focus our efforts and see what can be done to alleviate the problem.  The Group is already in touch with residents of one Lancashire village and is working with them to design a proposal and secure funding for a replacement service. We would like to do more of this work and your experiences will help us in knowing where best to look.

The Group has had some success in getting Lancashire County Council to change its mind over services such as the 33, 51, 81 and 89 and we hope that much more can be achieved.

Please leave a comment below or on our Facebook page.

New Stagecoach Timetables Available Online

Stagecoach has published online timetables for services changing on 3rd April 2016.  This has inadvertently exposed a flaw in the company's all-singing, all-dancing website in that, unlike the previous version, there doesn't appear to be an easy way to call-up timetables in advance of their introduction date.

The Bus Users' Group, however, has uncovered them lurking deep within the site and there is now a link in the "Service Changes" box on the left-hand side bar that will take you to them.

Service 42 (Lancaster - Blackpool) appears to be missing however and neither Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire nor Travellers Choice appear to have published anything for services 33, 51 or 89, all of which we will link to as soon as we can.

Lancashire County Council Removes NOW Cards from Dales Bus Service

Lancaster District Bus Users Group has learned that Lancashire County Council is to refuse to allow concessionary bus passes ("NOW Cards")  to be used on a Summer Sunday service to the Yorkshire Dales.

The Northern Dalesman service, which links Morecambe and Lancaster with Ingleton, Hawes, Keld and Richmond, is provided by the Dales & Bowland Community Interest Company as part of a network of bus services designed to allow people to visit the Yorkshire Dales without using their cars. The service is operated by Travellers' Choice of Carnforth.

Last year, North Yorkshire County Council took advantage of a little-known clause in the concessionary fares legislation to designate the service as being "primarily for tourism" which meant that concessionary passes could not be used, 

At the time, Lancashire decided not to go along with this, leading to the unusual situation that pass-holders boarding in Lancaster to travel into the Dales could travel free but had to pay on the return journey if they got on the bus in North Yorkshire.

For the 2016 season however, Lancashire - citing budget cuts and the need for savings - is following North Yorkshire's lead and has refused to admit the service into the Concessionary Fares Scheme, despite it being the only Sunday service in the Lune Valley following the council's withdrawal of subsidy for other routes.

Jim Davies, Chair of Lancaster District Bus Users' Group said "Lancaster Bus Users and Dales Bus fans will be very disappointed at the Council's action.  The savings that can be expected from excluding passes from a once-weekly bus, running only in the summer months, will be trivial and the county council is being petty as well as short-sighted in taking this action."

"The NOW Card scheme is highly valued by local people and the Group feels that this is the thin end of the wedge and will engender fears that passes may be withdrawn from other services in the future".

County Council Reprieves Some Local Bus Services

Service 89 has been saved!

Lancashire County Council has decided today to continue to provide a number of supported bus services that were set to be discontinued in April. The Council has allocated £2M to allow a number of bus services throughout Lancashire to escape the axe.  The services concerned will provide basic daytime services to areas that would otherwise have been left without any bus service and do not include any evening or Sunday services.



In Lancaster, services 33, 51 and 89 will now continue with reduced timetables and an extra early evening journey will be added to Stagecoach's commercial service 81 to help people get home from work. Stagecoach has already announced that it will provide commercial journeys on Sundays on service 5 and will extend service 49 beyond Halton to provide a service to the Kellets, Carnforth and Warton. The company will also run some extra early evening services on Lancaster city routes.

The Lancaster District Bus Users' Group welcomes the County Council's decision and agrees that this is the best use of the limited funding that the council now has available for bus services. Whilst we are naturally disappointed that many evening and Sunday journeys will be lost we would be interested in working with parish councils or local communities to explore ways of restoring these via alternative funding sources.


The following timetables will now be introduced on 3rd April 2016 

Please note that the documents are advance copies and are not prepared to the usual standards of presentation for public copies. As soon as these are available we will link to them instead. Lancaster District Bus Users' Group presents these timetables in good faith but cannot accept responsibility for any inaccuracies or changes made subsequent to the start of the services concerned. Passengers are advised to check nearer to the date of travel.

Services not listed below are expected to continue unchanged except services 1, 5B, 5C, 55C and 81A, which are withdrawn.

5  Overton - Morecambe - Carnforth
7  Lancaster - Vale
10 Lancaster - Ridge
11 Lancaster - Marsh
33 Morecambe - Bare (Circular)
42 Lancaster - Blackpool:  Journeys operated by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire in the evenings will be withdrawn as will the last journey in each direction on Sundays operated by Stagecoach
49  Lancaster - Halton - Carnforth - Warton
51 Carnforth - Silverdale
55 Lancaster - Hest Bank - Carnforth - Warton
80 Lancaster - Ingleton
81 Lancaster - Kirkby Lonsdale
89 Lancaster - Knott End
555 Lancaster - Keswick (new timetable from 19th March 2016)
755 Morecambe - Bowness (new timetable from 19th March 2016)