Purely anecdotal but thanks to Gateshead Council's appalling approach to traffic management, I've used a few buses over the weekend and noticed something interesting with the 21.
Whenver the Brandon and Durham 21 pulls in people let it go and automatically go for the 21 - it's almost like they auto programmed to hop on the CLS one as they think Durham and Brandon is an express. I hopped on a D&B 21 from Gateshead this morning which was tailgated the whole way by a CLS 21 and people were either letting ours go past or in the case of the Cannon, walking past it to get onto a the CLS one.
RE: September Service Changes
Wistfully stuck in the 90s