Hi there I am new here and I live in Humshaugh, Northumberland and I am trying to disentangle the mess of bus services in the area. My partner and I both have a disability and are reliant on bus services. I have never seen such a shocking level of unprofessional attitude and policies towards transport provision in my life. Many years ago I had a major piece of research published on bus deregulation and the person who assisted was a certain Counsellor David Begg in Edinburgh and this chap went on to be Tony Blairs personal advisor on bus transport. I do have some insight into the whole area of bus transport provision.
There are villages such as Wark that don’t have any bus stops or timetables. My local bus stop has bus services missing from the timetable. The county council fund all of the services and do absolutely nothing to promote them. At present they are cutting back massively on tendered services. The 682 Hexham to Colwell bus is being withdrawn. The operator Go Northeast who run the service under contract to the county council haven’t given the transport commissioner the required 56 days minimum  notice for a service change or withdrawal. The list is endless of unprofessional, bordering on illegal activities. For some reason the Council Haven’t applied for any payment from the BSOG for the period 2014-2015, when in previous years they have received quite substantial sums of money. I would content that the council are deliberately attempting to run down bus services by proxy. A good example is the bus gerrymandering of the 880 Kielder to Hexham bus.This has been cut back to just a Kielder to Bellingham service. It now makes it impossible to have a day at the National Park of travelling from South of Bellingham. The buses don’t connect or miss the last bus at Bellingham. The county council are legally responsible for timetables and bus stops. There isn’t any evidence at Kielder of any bus service existing at Kielder.
This morning I have been attempting to find out about a Tuesday only service that runs between Kielder and hexham. I am very good on the internet and it has been a real problem finding anything out about this service. It is not listed on my local bus stop. Eventually after much digging and wildcarding I found a service 694 run by Adapt. This service does not appear on their website or on any mobile transport mobile/ IOS app. I really have no idea if this bus will come or bring me back.
If an experienced internet user as myself can’t find this service how can a casual traveller. I have a high knowledge of bus service provision and experience of working within the research community and this terrible web of shocking behaviour is the worst I have ever seen. The county council here in Northumberland seem to be at the root of the problem. I have managed to have a letter published in the Hexham Courant but this was heavily edited.
I am at a loss to know what to do really. There is massive local indifference here to public transport and anyone without a car is treated by many like a second class citizen. The area is affluent and car obsessed and many may have given up trying to travel by bus as they simply don’t know when and if there are services. I suspect that was the aim all along.
So I still don’t know if my bus will be running today. I too feel like just giving up. But if I do I could be left without a bus and will have to move house.