As we do annually, it’s that time of the year again to review our lifeline services and to assess current and future viability of operations.

Due to changes in Commercial and County Council contracted services within Northumberland we have the following service update to release:

First of all there will be NO timetable changes to any of our services in September, they are currently registered to run as normal up until the 5th of November 2016. After this date we are looking at various options to continue these vital lifeline services for the communities we serve.

Our services 15, 16 and 406 are all currently run on a commercial basis with additional deminimis support payments from Northumberland County Council. These are then further boosted by frequent and generous S.o.S. (Support our Services) donations either via tickets bought on the bus, online payments or fund raising events. All of these combined have allowed us to complete our 2nd year of operation and evaluate the sustainability of all our routes.

We have succeeded in re-introducing rural services and links between urban centres which were long ago dropped either commercially or to save in subsidised payments. Over the past two years we have carried more than 50,000 passengers across our network.
We believe that being locally based and community focused, tailoring our services to the exact need of residents, businesses and visitors, has shown that there is a demand for the routes we provide.

As these services were all based on unknown figures it has always been a trial and error approach to operations. We initially saw great success with our Alnmouth Station ‘bus meets train’ service and working alongside Travelsure to provide a variation to the Alnwick town service – however the extension of the X20 to serve Alnmouth and rerouting of the X15 through Alnwick by Arriva North East saw our figures drop, impacting our financial viability to support the more rural services. To help balance this loss in revenue Northumberland National Park assisted us in introducing our award winning Guided Tour of Coquetdale along with advertising and promotional support.

The complex yet highly efficient timetable we run utilising one bus provides many onward connections especially to Wooler (Glen Valley Tours), Amble (Travelsure) and to Coastal destinations (Arriva).
Likewise, we heavily rely on inward connections at Rothbury from Newcastle and Morpeth via Arriva’s X14.
In September Northumberland County Council re-awarded Arriva the contract to run this service again as they have for the past number of years. Unfortunately Arriva’s reduced timetable does not fit around any of our existing connections and we are unable to create a viable alternate timetable without disrupting the above mentioned connections, fitting consulted passenger’s needs or running in daylight hours to ensure reliability in winter.

This will cause serious damage to our income and also disruption to residents and businesses in Upper Coquetdale.
● There will be no viable link up for ‘southbound’ passengers traveling from Coquetdale to Morpeth for the day.
● There will be no connections from Newcastle and Morpeth to Rothbury, a major source of our Route 16 revenue.
● Passengers will no longer be able to make straightforward transfers to Cragside Entrance & Alnwick.

Spirit Buses did place a competitive tender to run the Rothbury - Morpeth service which included guaranteed through connections to Newcastle as well as with our own current services to Coquetdale. This would have also guaranteed ALL our services for the next 5 years (the length of the contract).

However, we were unsuccessful on the grounds that the Arriva tender provided more value for money to Northumberland County Council and the community than we could.
We have been approached by N.C.C. with additional funding support utilising some of the money they saved on the above contract but unfortunately this isn’t sufficient to secure our services and would inevitably mean we would thereafter have to tender to run our own services in the future if we accepted this offer.
Our tender included the provision of a brand new bus on this route to match our 100% reliability over the past year. We also offered reduced fares to Morpeth and significant savings of up to a third for student travel. We are disappointed for the community as we could have sustained comfortably our routes for 5 years and created 4 local jobs.

Looking past the 5th of November, we have a number of options. We are tirelessly exploring to find the best result for the communities we serve. We are in discussions with Northumberland County Council and other bus operators to ensure continuation of these lifeline services into the future.

Until then, OUR SERVICES WILL CONTINUE TO RUN UP UNTIL 05TH OF NOVEMBER 2016 UNCHANGED but please remember there will be NO X14 connections with Arriva in Rothbury after their timetable change on 25th September 2016.

Many thanks for you continued support and understanding, words cannot adequately portray our gratitude to you all over the past 3 years.

There will be further updates to follow in due course once we can provide additional information.

Steve Hurst
Director, Spirit Buses Ltd.