I know it would cost money but imo they badly need to open a depot in the Bishop Auckland area and have the 1/5/6/8/56/X21/X75/X76/Local Services running out of it. Franchising half of it to Darlington just totally defeats the point of it and Newton Aycliffe has been ranked as one of the worst bus networks in the country.

It's not like there's no industrial wasteland in the area to build one tbh.

Could make a similar argument in North/Central Northumberland somewhere aswell since the Ashington situation isn't exactly ideal if you want to expand up there.