Well, the first bubble of the replacements has burst - Connexions have announced this evening that they will not be operating the 181 for the rest of the week. The County Council are in the process of tendering the contracted service work to start next week, including the 181, but Connexions aren't willing to run it at a lose for the rest of the week.

Incidentally, Transdev and Reliance have had their registrations approved today - Reliance's 31/31X will be running between Helmsley and Easingwold only while Transdev are operating the whole route. According to the CSV document, either as an error or for some unknown reason, Transdev's registration is for weekdays only - no Saturday journeys on their 31/31X if this does prove to be the case (the 29 is Monday to Saturday).