(15 Jun 2022, 5:11 pm)Thomas12 wrote This is genuinely not instead to be a flippant or abrupt response so please don’t view it in that way.I'd hope they would do a consultation. To be honest, I'd have hoped the incumbent would have done one to find out where punters (past and present) want to go too.
Where do you think these people would prefer buses to?
You’d hope that if the tenders are only for 1 year, prior to the tenders next year they would conducted a consultation to find out as they would have more time to prepare.
If I was in Pelton Fell and I was wanting to go to Newcastle, I'd not use the 28 all the way.
I'd either driver or, head in to Chester and get a quicker bus from there. Ditto on the way back. Assuming the connections worked anyway.
Not ideal.
If I was working at somewhere like TVTE, then it's mission impossible or the car.
If I was in Grange Villa and wanting to go to Durham, I'd want a direct bus there (like there used to be), but seeing as there isn't again, I'd look to transfer at Chester and hope connections worked. Wouldn't fancy going in the wrong direction to Stanley to change.
Again, looking at potential workplaces close by - Drum, the Eveready site or Consett - a bus isn't going to be an option.
You could substitute those places for the likes of Ouston/Perkinsville, Vigo, Barley Mow or Portmeads.
To get to work or anywhere half decent (and I use the word loosely) nearby, is 2 or 3 buses and a wait, 2 or 3 buses, a wait and a walk or the car.
I'd argue the majority of the buses being put up for cancellation in those areas exist only because of old school highstreets, villages and the pits.
The high streets are dying a death, the people living in the villages buy cars because the buses are pish and the pits went donkeys years ago.
Yet the routes still exist and go between the same places they have done since that network map at Beamish was designed.
These places need a reliable bus that takes them to the places they need and want to be. Wherever that is, it's clearly not the places currently on offer.