(18 Jun 2022, 6:31 am)DeltaMan wrote I think that is a very intresting question. The answer to which is probably a different question. Such as "how can you serve these places with a bus given the local geography"
You only have to look at a map of where Pelton Fell is to see the problem. There are no north/south roads, you can only go east or west, so the obvious places to send buses for a village that size are routes east to Chester and west towards Stanley and Beamish, as there is nowhere else to go.
Most of the other villages in that area have the opposite problem. They have three of four ways in and out and they are connected to each other - Grange Villa, Beamish, Newfield, Pelton, Craghead etc. Except for Pelton, they are pretty small, so there is no volume for multiple different destinations.
What if you find that you have a small group of people that from time to time travel from Grange Villa to Sacriston by car at different times of the day. But more people travel from Grange Villa to Stanley and Chester by bus, and then you discover there is little or no potential passenger flow from Newfield or Pelton to Sacriston? You wouldn't run a bus from Grange Villa to Sacriston as there are no other potential passengers to help create the volume needed.
Geography also explains one of the forums favourite topics as to why the structure of the Northern network map hasn't changed much since the days of Beamish - you can only serve certain places in certain ways due to where they are and how they relate to places around them. Nobody complains about the Stagecoach Newcastle network footprint. According to my Busways map from 1992 and corporation map from the 60s, the core network is almost exactly the same as now!
If we look at a map of the Kibblesworth area. It has easy access to the A1, so you can be as far as Morpeth and Darlington in just over thirty minutes by car. Take a step back and ask where the volume to run buses is coming from for a village in that location with only 1,500 people?
Unless somebody wants to build an entire bus network with Kibblesworth at the centre, I reckon only the 29 route to Gateshead is really justified, maybe on a half hourly basis, with alternate trips operating via Team Valley for workers and Low Fell for local services and connections. Anything more than that would mean a "double run", which would cost time, and potentially extra vehicles, wherever they ended up going.
imo Kibblesworth is the sort of the place where on paper a DRT would work well imo with the other few villages around there; Lamesley, Urpeth Grange, Ouston, Eighton Banks, High Hold etc.
It's just a shame they've never really been pushed much, mind it's questionable whether it would be better for a bus operator or a taxi operator to run it though as a sort of half way house between them. It's certainly better than the taxi buses which are creeping up in the area again which are infrequent are borderline useless.
Bus wise it only really deserves an hourly service and that's generous and since it's in an awkward place it's hard to send services via it without diverting off route.