On the Buses!

As people who use busses in this area know, there are many problems. I am on the busses subcomittee, with several other interested councillors. This was set up several months ago in response to the axing of the services to Barnsley, but many other issues have been discussed.

We are lucky to have a group of volunteers who travel every day on public transport and are keeping a diary of their experiences. Stagecoach have admitted that their services are unreliable in letters to the parish council and have set out action plans to remedy this. They are to introduce a new timetable from the 26th January, which allows more standing time inbetween runs, so that if they are running late then the knock on effect on the next run will be less. They also promised us new busses, the introduction of which unfortunately keep being delayed. They have taken note of overcrowding by ordering busses with 46 seats, as opposed to 40 seaters.

Will this be enough? When Yorkshire travel operated the 240 service, there were two companies each operating a 15 minute interval service, which were popular because they were frequent, reliable and comfortable fast new busses.

We have also looked at changes to the Wakefield buses, and discussed new routes to Barnsley. More information will be posted soon - watch this space.