(03 Apr 2016, 11:49 am)Charles41 wrote Part of the old A1 route is still there in the middle of the nature reserve. It was just grassed over and is becoming more and more overgrown. The new A1 route was all agricultural land mainly grazing for cows and sheep. The Kibblesworth bus also used to cross over the long bridge at the end of Tyne Yard. Most of the land was owned by Liddell family who used to live at Ravensworth Castle before it was mainly demolished.

Their estate used to stretch all the way from Wrekenton to Sunniside. The remains of Ravensworth Castle and the surrounding farm land now belong to the Oates family who used to be tenant farmers on the estate. Ravensworth Castle is private and they are not too keen on visitors. The Liddell family still own the freehold of Wrekenton golf course and most of the land under Chowdene housing estate.

The Ravensworth Arms at Lamesley used to be the estate pub for Ravensworth Castle.

Charles

(04 Apr 2016, 2:00 pm)BusLoverMum wrote Maybe whoever maintains this bus stop in the centre of Hartlepool will get the memo about the swap between the arriva 22 and 24, all of 18 months ago, sometime in the next decade...

And that SB no longer operate the 57A or the 22...

(04 Apr 2016, 2:06 pm)Jimmi wrote Pygalls service 230 was withdrawn two years ago as well.

(04 Apr 2016, 2:00 pm)BusLoverMum wrote Maybe whoever maintains this bus stop in the centre of Hartlepool will get the memo about the swap between the arriva 22 and 24, all of 18 months ago, sometime in the next decade...

And that SB no longer operate the 57A or the 22...

(18 May 2016, 10:45 am)Andreos1 wrote The talk of Hartlepool elsewhere on the forum, has reminded me of the many stops that aren't in use in and around the suburbs of Hartlepool.

There are a few flags along Victoria Road (the section leading from Morrisons towards the football ground) and Brougham Terrace amongst many others, displaying (if memory serves) 'bus stop no longer in use'.

(18 May 2016, 11:25 am)James101 wrote There is of course an almost secret bus station around there. Unloved and unused for many years but incredibly well preserved....The £5million Hartlepool Interchange built in 2010! 

(18 May 2016, 11:32 am)Andreos1 wrote There is that too!

I wondered how it could be integrated in to your service suggestions and reintroducing services down Church Street in to the housing areas down there (and maybe even extending as far as Tesco!)

(18 May 2016, 11:50 am)James101 wrote In the current state I think it is very much a lost cause. As Cleveland College of Art & Design expands into converting the council's Lynn Street Depot into their campus hopefully this will spur improvements along Church Street between the CCAD buildings at the top & bottom. Coupled with the Council's 15 year plan featuring Church Street as a key area for improvement, there's possibly hope for the interchange serving a purpose. 

In an ideal world the Tees Valley Metro would come to fruition using the existing tracks between Hartlepool - Nunthorpe with an upped frequency and more interim stations. More trains through the station would justify more buses to the interchange and integrated ticketing would allow Hartlepool residents to take the bus from their suburb to the interchange and the Metro on to their employment across Tees Valley.

There's some big housing projects planned for hartlepool, south west extension & High Tunstall (totalling 2,500 new homes). It's no secret many professionals purchase cheaper homes in Hartlepool and commute to Teesside & Durham for work. Now's the time to ensure public transport is a viable option for these new developments from the start. Promoting lower car ownership in new developments makes it easier to ensure developers are obliged to make provisions for not only buses; but schools, shops and other community facilities.

(18 May 2016, 12:04 pm)Andreos1 wrote The old bus depot? (it is ghost bus infrastructure!) I didn't realise the council had moved out of there. I know a lot of the council admin services had departed the building across the road (the building name escapes me), but had no idea about the depot.

The potential down there (especially with the inevitably cheap land) as opposed to green land construction elsewhere, is massive.
The housing on the old Steetly site is progressing rapidly. Let's just hope coastal erosion doesn't happen too quickly!

edit: Re Tunstall - http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/18million-elwick-bypass-planned-to-divert-a19-traffic-route-will-support-1-200-home-development-1-7916779

(18 May 2016, 12:24 pm)James101 wrote http://hartlepool.ccad.ac.uk/lynn-street-development/

The above webpage shows the development and the youtube clip shows the area marked 'bus depot' quickly replaced by the new CCAD. A piece of North East bus history has quietly already been demolished. The new development, in fairness, brings a lot of value to the town. It may just be a co-incidence but the CCAD development is ideally placed to spur gentrification around it. 

RE Steetly housing; I studied a Geography Bsc which provided some background on the processes around costal erosion. How on earth that development ever got the go ahead is beyond me. The issues that come from building on contaminated land are dwarfed by the prospect of your new home falling into the North Sea! Not that there was much prevention work done anyway, but costal protection is a constant process, there's simply no fix. There's been many instances, including on the Humber coast not far away, where the Environment Agency have ruled it's no longer cost effective to protect homes and they must be abandoned and left to fall into the sea. I would imagine those homes will not last as long as the mortgages on them.

(18 May 2016, 12:24 pm)James101 wrote http://hartlepool.ccad.ac.uk/lynn-street-development/

The above webpage shows the development and the youtube clip shows the area marked 'bus depot' quickly replaced by the new CCAD. A piece of North East bus history has quietly already been demolished. The new development, in fairness, brings a lot of value to the town. It may just be a co-incidence but the CCAD development is ideally placed to spur gentrification around it. 

RE Steetly housing; I studied a Geography Bsc which provided some background on the processes around costal erosion. How on earth that development ever got the go ahead is beyond me. The issues that come from building on contaminated land are dwarfed by the prospect of your new home falling into the North Sea! Not that there was much prevention work done anyway, but costal protection is a constant process, there's simply no fix. There's been many instances, including on the Humber coast not far away, where the Environment Agency have ruled it's no longer cost effective to protect homes and they must be abandoned and left to fall into the sea. I would imagine those homes will not last as long as the mortgages on them.

(18 May 2016, 12:58 pm)BusLoverMum wrote My parents' house is on the East Yorkshire coast. We've calculated that, at the current, rather rapid, rate of erosion around their village, they've got a good 100 years. Their house has been there 150, but I somehow don't think we'll be keeping it in the family (even though my mum worked out that it used to be a shop, run by one of her ancestors!)

And while 100 years sounds great, they're almost a mile inland. That's like losing half of Seaham, or Peterlee (very little of which is likely to still be standing in 100 years in its current form, anyhow) becoming a seaside town.

(31 May 2016, 8:23 pm)James101 wrote https://www.scribblemaps.com/create/#id=cWDtSS7Yvk&lat=54.6898257447798&lng=-1.2383426126251607&z=13&t=custom_style

EDIT: I think the above link only works on a desktop browser



Combining my interest of buses, maps and urban development/decay, I've spent a few hours plotting Hartlepool's bus stops.

I'm not claiming its 100% accurate and I'm open to corrections. The basic key is green = an active stop, red = a disused stop. I've classed an active stop as one which has a registered service stopping at least once per day. As such, stops on the minibus route 65 are excluded but stops on once-a-day service 20 is included. 

I collated the information through my own knowledge of the area verified using Streetview, so it's possible that some disused have disappeared since the last Google images were taken. Equally, where there is a route of disused stops, there is occasionally only a marker on one side of the road as the opposite has been taken down and therefore no stop now exists.

Zooming our to see the whole town at once it's interesting to see that Hartlepool is well covered by stops, wether they be used or disused. At this level it is also easy to see the areas which have been left bus-baren as services have retrenched; largely the rural west of the town and the immediate east and west of the town centre as routes have been simplified as they pass through the middle of the town.  

On zooming in there's some interesting detail. Areas in Seaton Carew, Clavering and Throston have disused stops where two routes have merged into one or have been revised to operate in a terminal loop and therefore only serving one side of a road. There's also so oddities such as the lone stops on Ocean Drive & Summerhill which I believe were last used by the Countryside bus 401. There's also a stop on the now blocked road around Jacksons landing, last served I think by Shopping Shuttle 25 operated by Cleveland Transit's Leyland PD3. 

To crunch some numbers:

I counted 536 stops overall

Of which 209 are disused

That equates to 39% of stops in Hartlepool are not in use

Or to put it another way, if you pick a stop at random and head there today, there's only a 3 in 5 chance a bus will ever come!

(31 May 2016, 9:37 pm)BusLoverMum wrote I'm a little bit in love with that!

I don't know Hartlepool well but I did know that their bus services have been stripped back to the bare bones. The huge swathes of red are a little alarming. Is the area to the west of the town centre largely residential?

I do also wonder about the life expectancy of people living in and around Elwick, as the stats for serious accidents entering the A19 from there are pretty scary.

That little line of stops just off the A179 is, I presume, Hart village? That's served by the Scarlet Band 58. I know that service is secured by DCC, within Co Durham. Is that section of the route operated commercially, as I don't think Hartlepool Council secure any services now, do they?

(31 May 2016, 10:00 pm)James101 wrote I'm glad you like it!

The areas both east and west of the town are residential and busless. 

I read a piece at uni about the impact of the cuts which featured Elwick. I'm struggling to find the document now but it was pretty heart-wrenching stuff about how not only are the elderly stuck in the village, their relatives can't reach them either so they end up lonely for days on end. It's worth noting Pauls Travel have stepped in since with their limited service which was in the news recently: 

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/people-are-being-urged-to-use-bus-service-linking-hartlepool-and-rural-communities-1-7939079

In the article, the operator explains how the service runs at a £5,500 annual loss but they have no plans to withdraw it as long as people need their service. It's very concerning how the mobility of our most vulnerable is left to a generous local businesswoman after being abandoned by both Stagecoach and the local authority. 

The stops on the A19 itself are a bit of a worry! I'm certain the X7/X9/X10 won't observe them but I wonder if any service has ever served them in the past? I wonder who ever thought it would be a good idea!

Those stops are indeed the ones which the 58 observes. While Hartlepool does not fund the service, I wonder in DCC are more open minded to the idea that the residents of Wingate/Station Town may have a need to go into another area. Indeed, their Link 2 service will take passengers up to 5 miles into the Tees Valley.

(20 May 2016, 1:16 pm)GMitchelhill wrote Greenlee Drive in Cochrane Park (Behind the olds Wills Factory) has a number of laybys and a turning circle which were intended for a bus service that never came about. Until a few years ago you could see faded Bus Stop marking on the road.

(31 May 2016, 9:37 pm)BusLoverMum wrote I'm a little bit in love with that!

I do also wonder about the life expectancy of people living in and around Elwick, as the stats for serious accidents entering the A19 from there are pretty scary.

(31 May 2016, 10:00 pm)James101 wrote I'm glad you like it!

The areas both east and west of the town are residential and busless. 

I read a piece at uni about the impact of the cuts which featured Elwick. I'm struggling to find the document now but it was pretty heart-wrenching stuff about how not only are the elderly stuck in the village, their relatives can't reach them either so they end up lonely for days on end. It's worth noting Pauls Travel have stepped in since with their limited service which was in the news recently: 

The stops on the A19 itself are a bit of a worry! I'm certain the X7/X9/X10 won't observe them but I wonder if any service has ever served them in the past? I wonder who ever thought it would be a good idea!

236.jpg (Size 316.78 KB | Downloads 34)

(01 Jun 2016, 7:58 pm)beefcake wrote 516 during the day and 518 during the evenings