Accrington Town Buses

[158756]

Lancashire County Council have decided to step in to fund the network of town buses in Accrington after local operator Pilkington Bus have decided they can no longer sustain these routes commercially. https://news.lancashire.gov.uk/news/vital-bus-services-around-accrington-are-set-to-be-saved

The council are running a consultation on changes to the services, which involve 8 Pilkington routes (some of which only operate a handful of times a day), plus 3 school services, being simplified into 4 routes, each running roughly hourly Monday-Saturday (Pilkingtons only ran Monday-Friday) and with last buses between 6-7pm (current last buses are around 4-4:30)

Link to consultation
Map of proposed services

To be honest I'm surprised these services were still operated commercially, but basically I think this was just because they operated everything around school runs. It does seem a bit unusual that the service going tendered results in significant improvements.

 

[Andyh82]

More buses at times Pilkingtons currently don’t operate, such as lunchtime, school time and Saturdays

But less buses at times Pilkingtons currently do operate, as they currently use 4 buses and this new network looks to use 3 buses

 

[158756]

More buses at times Pilkingtons currently don’t operate, such as lunchtime, school time and Saturdays

But less buses at times Pilkingtons currently do operate, as they currently use 4 buses and this new network looks to use 3 buses

Pilkington's do use 4 buses, but one of them spends all day on the number 1 (Clayton-Accrington-Oswaldtwistle), which almost entirely duplicates Transdev's 6/7. The Oswaldtwistle leg will be withdrawn and the Clayton side rerouted to cover parts of Pilkington routes 2,5 and 8.

The other area I can see will lose out is the loss of some direct journeys on the circular routes 5 and 8, but I don't know if many people actually make those trips, they don't run at school times when they might be most useful. And also you could use them in either direction for a roughly half hourly service to the town centre in the morning.

 

[Aaron Ashton]

The Accrington Local Services have been unsustainable for quite some time, they have only been able to carry on with the additions of tendered school services and even then they were still unsustainable. Good to see LCC stepping in

 

[northern506]

Pilkingtonbus will retain the Accrington town services, the new times can be found here: https://bustimes.org/operators/pilkingtonbus

It seems like they will start on the 25th November, as opposed to the 28th October originally stated in the consultation.

 

[Aaron Ashton]

Pilkingtonbus will retain the Accrington town services, the new times can be found here: https://bustimes.org/operators/pilkingtonbus

It seems like they will start on the 25th November, as opposed to the 28th October originally stated in the consultation.

Having seen the Service Instruction Form, it was also stated as 18th November for the A1-4 too. Seems they might just be introduced just in time for the Christmas period which will be welcomed surely.