(12 Jul 2024, 8:34 pm)Storx wrote Must be at least 2 years now? Feels like it, at least, anyway but I'm probably very wrong there.

Believe the Roseden Way to Spine Road junction which Stagecoach are planning on using only opened in November 2023 (https://www.newcastlegreatpark.com/rosed...ning-date/). The Spine Road fully opened, connecting to Kingston Park, in October 2022 so they could have sent it up there and used a different junction to do a smaller loop. 

Regardless, I imagine they were likely waiting for the current funding for the Q3 to end. 

There seems to be some discontent with the proposed changes from those living in the parts of Great Park on the Gosforth side of the A1, mainly as this leaves them with the 49 which looks like a pretty useless service. From what I gather the main issue with the Q3 is the pretty pointless Jesmond diversion, which causes reliability issues during the peaks and extends journey times to Newcastle on every trip. These changes address that in a way, and do provide better connections with Kingston Park and much improved evening services, but the 49 needs to run earlier and later.