(13 Jan 2023, 2:53 pm)mb134 wrote It makes perfect sense. Newcastle to Holystone Park is pretty much bang on 30 minutes, if they intend to keep an hourly frequency and keep it in the current interworking pattern then it works perfectly. As soon as you take it to Northumberland Park it adds around 10 minutes per trip, so it would either need to go standalone and you'd need 2 buses, or it would massively change what can be achieved with interworking and you probably can't save the bus that this initial cut would.

I don't see Newcastle - Benton ASDA section of the 51 staying. 310 (with 309 changed to run via High Farm) could easily serve Wiltshire Drive and the 22 could serve Hadrian Park every 20 minutes to replace the 311 (with the other every 20 mins to Cobalt as now).

Holystone to Whitley Bay could be picked up by another route, maybe an hourly extension to the 55?

Don't know how Benton rise could be covered or whether that small section would warrant a link to Newcastle? But......if an additional stop (see screenshot) was added onto Wiltshire Drive, it would only be 482m or 0.3miles walk to the entrance of Benton Rise.