North East Buses

Interested to read of that another bus station could be built in Newcastle

(22 Oct 2021, 7:25 am)Train8261 wrote [ -> ]Interested to read of that another bus station could be built in Newcastle

Really there should just be 1 massive one.

A single ticket that would allow unlimited travel across all bus, Metro, and ferry services in Tyne and Wear, County Durham, and Northumberland, plus rail services between Sunderland, Newcastle, the Metrocentre and Blaydon. The multi-modal ticket could be capped at between £4 and £6.80 daily depending how far across the region you travel. It would be available to either pre-purchase as a physical ticket or could be automatically calculated as passengers travel using a contactless bank card, pay as you go smartcard, or mobile app;

A bit of a climbdown from the '£5 ticket for travel across the entire region' article posted elsewhere on the forum recently.

(22 Oct 2021, 8:31 am)MurdnunoC wrote [ -> ]A bit of a climbdown from the '£5 ticket for travel across the entire region' article posted elsewhere on the forum recently.

Still would be great value though.

I'm intrigued about the new bus station in Bishop. The one in the town centre is /fine/, so maybe one on Tindale should they ever get round to building the cinema/bowling alley

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(22 Oct 2021, 9:03 am)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]Still would be great value though.

I'm intrigued about the new bus station in Bishop. The one in the town centre is /fine/, so maybe one on Tindale should they ever get round to building the cinema/bowling alley

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Imagine it being a refurbishment rather than a new one, sure there was plans to knock down the Newgate Centre, think that's it's name so might be one big scheme. It's a desolate bus station Bishop if you can even call it than, more a few shelters on a road.

Alnwick I'm guessing is similar.

(22 Oct 2021, 8:23 am)Keeiajs wrote [ -> ]Really there should just be 1 massive one.

Where do you put it though? Newcastle City Centre isn't really big in comparison to places like Glasgow, which obviously has a huge bus station. 

As I posted in another thread, the only realistic place is the land on Westmorland Rd and the Blandford St junction, but then people would twist that it is too far from the City Centre.

(22 Oct 2021, 8:31 am)MurdnunoC wrote [ -> ]A bit of a climbdown from the '£5 ticket for travel across the entire region' article posted elsewhere on the forum recently.

Yeah, but maybe that was about as realistic as asking for £804m out of an allocated pot of £3bn for the whole of England...

I'm all for ambition, but I hope there's a plan B. Unless they're banking on the Tories having had a personality transplant.

(22 Oct 2021, 9:03 am)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]Still would be great value though.

I'm intrigued about the new bus station in Bishop. The one in the town centre is /fine/, so maybe one on Tindale should they ever get round to building the cinema/bowling alley

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Park Lane should get a new one.

(22 Oct 2021, 6:56 am)Keeiajs wrote [ -> ]https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/nor...r-21933752

And yet Ashington rail link is on a shoestring and no metro extensions at all , even cuts as money can't be sourced to prop up green transport. What else to expect from a regime that garners donations from bus companies for favours.

(22 Oct 2021, 9:15 am)Storx wrote [ -> ]Imagine it being a refurbishment rather than a new one, sure there was plans to knock down the Newgate Centre, think that's it's name so might be one big scheme. It's a desolate bus station Bishop if you can even call it than, more a few shelters on a road.

Alnwick I'm guessing is similar.

I'd take Bishop bus station over CLS, at least the shelters are somewhat enclosed, and the 'road' is buses only.

I don't recall hearing any plans to knock down Newgate Centre recently, in fact the Jobcentre seem to be taking over half of it

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(22 Oct 2021, 9:27 am)54APhotography wrote [ -> ]And yet Ashington rail link is on a shoestring and no metro extensions at all , even cuts as money can't be sourced to prop up green transport. What else to expect from a regime that garners donations from bus companies for favours.

It's a fund just for levelling up buses so they can't really bid for Metro / trains. Anything for trains and the Metro would be a different budget.

(22 Oct 2021, 9:28 am)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]I'd take Bishop bus station over CLS, at least the shelters are somewhat enclosed, and the 'road' is buses only.

I don't recall hearing any plans to knock down Newgate Centre recently, in fact the Jobcentre seem to be taking over half of it

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Aye that's true mind, probably cheaper to redo though just hoy a nicer building up with some doors and that's it. I'm more surprised at Durham and Alnwick tbh. Are we planning to knock down the new one and build another new one...? Plus Alnwick really isn't bad - https://goo.gl/maps/ZhwhVUpLBfYScUgp6.

Mind it's confusing saying North East when it's not the North East, it's the LA7 only and doesn't include Tees Valley so isn't much use for those down Bishop etc who go to Darlington and no doubt will end up paying £7+ for the border tax.

(22 Oct 2021, 9:41 am)Storx wrote [ -> ]It's a fund just for levelling up buses so they can't really bid for Metro / trains. Anything for trains and the Metro would be a different budget.


Aye that's true mind, probably cheaper to redo though just hoy a nicer building up with some doors and that's it. I'm more surprised at Durham and Alnwick tbh. Are we planning to knock down the new one and build another new one...? Plus Alnwick really isn't bad - https://goo.gl/maps/ZhwhVUpLBfYScUgp6.

Mind it's confusing saying North East when it's not the North East, it's the LA7 only and doesn't include Tees Valley so isn't much use for those down Bishop etc who go to Darlington and no doubt will end up paying £7+ for the border tax.

It's still taxpayers money, like all this paint... The regime has a duty to balance the bus improvement plan with more sustainable transport. Ashington really should be Metro, electrified and low carbon footprint, so when ripping up station ideas whilst the incumbent bus operator gets an injection doesn't look good, or help carbon reduction..

As for Alnwick, it isn't too clever, the brick shelter doubles as a urinal at night and is not a nice place to wait for a bus on a warm sunny day...

(22 Oct 2021, 9:41 am)Storx wrote [ -> ]It's a fund just for levelling up buses so they can't really bid for Metro / trains. Anything for trains and the Metro would be a different budget.


Aye that's true mind, probably cheaper to redo though just hoy a nicer building up with some doors and that's it. I'm more surprised at Durham and Alnwick tbh. Are we planning to knock down the new one and build another new one...? Plus Alnwick really isn't bad - https://goo.gl/maps/ZhwhVUpLBfYScUgp6.

Mind it's confusing saying North East when it's not the North East, it's the LA7 only and doesn't include Tees Valley so isn't much use for those down Bishop etc who go to Darlington and no doubt will end up paying £7+ for the border tax.

Despite Darlington being much closer to me in Bishop, I'd much rather travel back up north as there's very little to do there

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(22 Oct 2021, 9:47 am)54APhotography wrote [ -> ]It's still taxpayers money, like all this paint... The regime has a duty to balance the bus improvement plan with more sustainable transport. Ashington really should be Metro, electrified and low carbon footprint, so when ripping up station ideas whilst the incumbent bus operator gets an injection doesn't look good, or help carbon reduction..

As for Alnwick, it isn't too clever, the brick shelter doubles as a urinal at night and is not a nice place to wait for a bus on a warm sunny day...

Aye no arguments here, we need much better trains up in particular imo. Like we have the ECML passing through numerous towns but there's no stops since it's overloaded and it can't have a service. Killingworth, Ferryhill, North Durham, Birtley, Low Fell / Team Valley, Dudley, Langley Moor, North Darlington just to name a few. Crazy really.

No doubt we'll be building bus corridors to cover some of these aswell when argubly the buses should be going no-where near Newcastle anyway with them providing a local service to the much faster train. Shame we're massively disconnected like that though. Even with people using cycles doing the first hop and missing the bus altogether.

(22 Oct 2021, 11:26 am)streetdeckfan wrote [ -> ]Despite Darlington being much closer to me in Bishop, I'd much rather travel back up north as there's very little to do there

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Some is using them though, there's 6 buses an hour between the two places and just as many from Newton Aycliffe aswell.

Clearly the additional bus station in Newcastle needs to be somewhere in the Pilgrim Street area capable of accommodating all services that run to/from Gateshead, so they don’t have to loop all around the city centre. And with one bay big enough to accommodate the X9/X10 coaches as well.

A bus station at Market Street would do well since people wouldn't have to wait in the rain or wind for a bus. Plus the amount of buses using Market Street now

(22 Oct 2021, 12:57 pm)Train8261 wrote [ -> ]A bus station at Market Street would do well since people wouldn't have to wait in the rain or wind for a bus. Plus the amount of buses using Market Street now

So which of the listed buildings do you propose demolishing to make way for that...?

The vast majority of the central City Centre is listed, therefore wholesale removal to put a bus station in just isn't going to happen. The areas that aren't listed are all pretty much earmarked for development or unsuitable for a bus station.

An amazing bus station could be built if the dead loss that is eldon garden was written off - could improve access to the car park above it, while they were at it.

(22 Oct 2021, 1:07 pm)Adrian wrote [ -> ]So which of the listed buildings do you propose demolishing to make way for that...? 

The vast majority of the central City Centre is listed, therefore wholesale removal to put a bus station in just isn't going to happen. The areas that aren't listed are all pretty much earmarked for development or unsuitable for a bus station.

Only realistic area is the stack site, but is that even big enough?

The stack site would be ideal, whats the long term plan for that area, and that horrendous brutalist building that hangs over the road next to it?

(22 Oct 2021, 1:41 pm)Wybus wrote [ -> ]The stack site would be ideal, whats the long term plan for that area, and that horrendous brutalist building that hangs over the road next to it?

That’s a prime city block. It wouldn’t get used as a bus station.

A large office development has recently been proposed for the Stack, Dex Garage and brutalist building site.

(22 Oct 2021, 1:42 pm)ne14ne1 wrote [ -> ]That’s a prime city block. It wouldn’t get used as a bus station.

A large office development has recently been proposed for the Stack, Dex Garage and brutalist building site.

Yep, all earned by the Rueben Bros (Dex comes down this week or next too). That area is also being made no traffic which is another blocker! 

My issue, as ever, with these things is that they are in the hands of councils and local authorities who particularly in the North East are woefully inadequate. Martin Gannon is a disaster zone who has run Gateshead into the ground and will blame anyone but himself.

The immediate priority should be proper integrated ticketing and contactless payments on all buses (including contracts)

And Superbus? Is it the 90/00s again? We've tried all this, it didn't work.

(22 Oct 2021, 1:41 pm)Wybus wrote [ -> ]The stack site would be ideal, whats the long term plan for that area, and that horrendous brutalist building that hangs over the road next to it?

Owned as stated by the Reuben Brothers who have planning permission to build new offices for HMRC on the site with The Stack potentially being moved over towards Science City.

With regards to a new Bus Station i'd have it in the area of where Haymarket is on Percy Street and close it to normal traffic with the exception of business deliveries.

(22 Oct 2021, 8:40 pm)Malarkey wrote [ -> ]Owned as stated by the Reuben Brothers who have planning permission to build new offices for HMRC on the site with The Stack potentially being moved over towards Science City.

With regards to a new Bus Station i'd have it in the area of where Haymarket is on Percy Street and close it to normal traffic with the exception of business deliveries.

Was going to suggest St Thomas Street or Newgate Street, but both of those would only be shelters rather than an actual interchange.

(22 Oct 2021, 8:40 pm)Malarkey wrote [ -> ]Owned as stated by the Reuben Brothers who have planning permission to build new offices for HMRC on the site with The Stack potentially being moved over towards Science City.

With regards to a new Bus Station i'd have it in the area of where Haymarket is on Percy Street and close it to normal traffic with the exception of business deliveries.

Makes no sense having another bus station there since the buses have to trail through Newcastle to get to it, any new bus station needs to be at the Southern / Eastern side of the city close to the Tyne Bridge or it's a waste of time.

If you moved the Consett and Metro Centre buses away from the North of the city there's more than enough capacity up there.

(22 Oct 2021, 11:41 am)Storx wrote [ -> ]Aye no arguments here, we need much better trains up in particular imo. Like we have the ECML passing through numerous towns but there's no stops since it's overloaded and it can't have a service. Killingworth, Ferryhill, North Durham, Birtley, Low Fell / Team Valley, Dudley, Langley Moor, North Darlington just to name a few. Crazy really.

I don't know if you have seen, but the regime has pulled the plug on the Leamside, so that's the end of any hopes for public transport relief south of Newcastle

(23 Oct 2021, 7:23 am)54APhotography wrote [ -> ]I don't know if you have seen, but the regime has pulled the plug on the Leamside, so that's the end of any hopes for public transport relief south of Newcastle

Don't think it was ever planned was it? It definitely needs doing it for extra capacity on the ECML nevermind for the local links. The Northern Powerhouse Rail stuff is the biggest joke though, might aswell be called Manchester Rail, levelling up my arse biggest joke around.

(23 Oct 2021, 7:32 am)Storx wrote [ -> ]Don't think it was ever planned was it? It definitely needs doing it for extra capacity on the ECML nevermind for the local links. The Northern Powerhouse Rail stuff is the biggest joke though, might aswell be called Manchester Rail, levelling up my arse biggest joke around.

It was, and passed the first stage of DfT assessment. Looks like all 'northern powerhouse' is dead now. no HS2 to Liverpool or very probably Leeds, some crap about upgrading Standedge that's it..

Ultimately it's us that lose out, and even Bebside for Blyth looks dead as they cut back on commitments for Ashington,.

New bus station [emoji848]Worswick street anyone ?

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(23 Oct 2021, 8:37 am)atlantean560 wrote [ -> ]New bus station [emoji848]Worswick street anyone ?

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Where? There’s no room on Worswick St.