(04 Aug 2015, 2:34 pm)Tom wrote All very good changes. Especially the 20/X20.I disagree. These are not all, good and sensible changes. The main interurban services are all sensible changes. Yet again Arriva is determined to provide useless inner urban services in Cramlington. The 58 is useless. People who rely on the buses have gone from having an every 20minute service on the C1/C2s from 7am to 7pm daily Monday to Saturday. These were phased out. Eastfield Lea and Collingwood Grange eventually had no service. Beacon Hill and Nelson Village have suffered a reeuction to a half hourly, then an hourly service to all sorts of destinations along the way.
Now, East Hartford, once had an hourly 43A service to Newcastle, Nelson Village, Beacon Hill, Collingwood Grange and Eastfield Lea had 20min services Manor Walks, Hartley and sluice had an hourly 442 service.
All since gone and forgotton to a service that provides a meagre service at hourly and shockingly 2 hourly intervals.
Effectively cutting people off from GP appointments and needless travel long before appointments. Hospital appointments and so fourth.
Sadly Arriva needs to come back to local control where decisions are made by depot managers, not centralised profiteers. I agree services should break even. But we had a great bus service in Cramlington until 2006ish. I just think it is poor these days.
Some may disagree. I have have lived, gorwn up in, and visyed Cramlington for 29years. It part qualifies me to have a valid opinion.