(08 Aug 2022, 8:46 pm)Andreos1 wrote In recent years, bus services (generally they all worked Sunderland - Houghton type routes) have been reduced in that area.


During the same period, the A690/A19 Interchange has had plenty of work done on it over the years.
Both lengthening and widening slip roads/junctions and working to improve the junction at Stoneygate.


Lots of reactive decision making. Very little proactive or creative planning.

Try looking at how easy it is to get from Penshaw to Doxford Park via bus and compare it to the car.
How about Bournmoor to Doxford Park. 
Seaham? 
Grindon?
Thorney Close? 
Murton? 

These aren't places that are miles away. These are the places the people who work in Doxford Park will be living.
Yet they can't use public transport easily, timely or efficiently. So they use the car and we see constant road improvement schemes to combat the traffic. 

Doxford Park isn't unique in this aspect either.

There's an argument that most out of town retail parks are designed in such a way that it ensures the car is king. Dalton Park is a perfect example of it; easy access from the A19, with a 'catchment area' stretching anywhere between Ryhope and the Tees Valley CA border. You're never going to be stuck for a parking space, and your car is on hand to load all your shopping into. IMO there's not much a bus can do to compete against that, and really it has a good service from it's catchment area in and around East Durham.

I don't visit Dalton Park much, but tend to spend a lot of time on buses going in and around the Arnison Centre. It's completely overbussed with the 21/50/64, and in my experience, only the 64 tends to pick up any passengers - and they're usually off by the time it gets out of Newton Hall.

Employment hubs like Doxford are a completely different kettle of fish, and if anything, it should be relatively easy to understand the travel needs of the businesses housed in those hubs. Doxford International's service is woeful, but given it's location and the access in and around it, how do you serve it more efficiently without pissing off users of existing services? Would those using the X10 want even more of a detour added?

You've made the point yourself recently that your mates were put off using the 4, because it now takes a detour around Follingsby, despite there not being many other practical ways of serving it. Again down to location, and then access coming off the A195 from Washington.