(11 hours ago)Kimlfixit wrote True enough. No disrespect to Stockton, but I would think Darlington would be a bigger draw. One assumes at the time they withdrew the X21 they thought about either Darlington or Stockton and plumbed for Stockton and now Stockton is a building site and Darlo is upwardly mobile

Yeah, to be honest, the Trimdons are probably partially moaning because Arriva are attacking them again. Seems every time they're doing service changes they're getting something cut from the area; with Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Durham, Newton Aycliffe, Darlington, Hartlepool and now Stockton all lost over the past 10 year or so. 

Obviously some links are kept with the 59 being ran by the council though and they're regaining the Aycliffe / Darlington links, potentially but I'd be pretty annoyed aswell to be honest.

(57A (https://api.arrivabus.co.uk/routes/servi...r-2021.pdf) and the X21 heading to Sunderland being those routes for reference)