Bakewell Cut Off

[Llandudno]

The latest round of bus cuts in Derbyshire have just been announced with further swinging cuts to evening and weekend services.

It now appears that Bakewell and the A6 corridor between Buxton and Matlock is now devoid any bus services after 1800 on weekdays. This means that returning from Manchester/Stockport after 4.30pm is impossible.

The last bus to be seen in Bakewell is the 1924 to Buxton.
The last buses to Bakewell are:
1750 from Buxton
1815 from Derby
1850 from Chesterfield
1815 from Sheffield

I know that Derbyshire CC have funding issues but don’t they have some statutory obligation to provide some limited service in such a large geographical area of the county, especially in area popular with tourists/ramblers.

Surely a couple of round trips between Buxton Railway Station and Matlock Railway Station, connecting with trains wouldn’t cost too much to procure.

 

[Robertj21a]

Just too little demand, as with many similar services. Derbyshire (in conjunction with Centrebus/High Peak) have probably tried harder than most.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Just too little demand, as with many similar services. Derbyshire (in conjunction with Centrebus/High Peak) have probably tried harder than most.

Yeah, for all I might criticise Peddle he does have a much lower profit threshold than the big groups and so will keep things going much longer. It's quite noticeable to compare the old MK Metro network (far more routes and variations) with Arriva's present MK network (fewer but more profitable main routes at higher frequencies).

 

[Robertj21a]

Yeah, for all I might criticise Peddle he does have a much lower profit threshold than the big groups and so will keep things going much longer. It's quite noticeable to compare the old MK Metro network (far more routes and variations) with Arriva's present MK network (fewer but more profitable main routes at higher frequencies).

True. He also seems to try harder than most to help local councils when they are struggling with funding issues. Evening services in the more rural areas are virtually dead nowadays unless one end of the route is a very large town/city.

 

[richardderby]

Yes, I noticed that Bakewell has really had a drastic cut to evening buses. It was the loss of the trans peak, which is curtailed to only run Derby-Buxton, and the corresponding reduced timetable which came with it. Gone are the buses post 6pm, there used to be buses until late evening both ways. There are now three buses from Bakewell to Matlock after 6pm, 6.20 TP, 6.30, trent 6.1, and finally at 6.44 the 218 from Sheffield to Matlock. Then nothing. Surely one of these three could be a tad later maybe.. Perhaps DCC support...

 

[tbtc]

I know that Derbyshire CC have funding issues but don’t they have some statutory obligation to provide some limited service in such a large geographical area of the county, especially in area popular with tourists/ramblers.

Surely a couple of round trips between Buxton Railway Station and Matlock Railway Station, connecting with trains wouldn’t cost too much to procure.

I'm not sure that ramblers would affect statutory obligations, but you've kind of answered your own question in the previous words.

It's a large geographical area of the country, but the population of Bakewell is under four thousand.

You could round the numbers up a little by adding in Baslow etc, but that makes it even harder to serve with public transport, thinner numbers over a large area.

There's no particular nightlife in Bakewell, no Student population etc (it's more of a retirement town), so that makes it harder to justify evening services.

Matlock, down the valley, has under ten thousand people, and it's not like there's anything particular in one town or the other to justify a lot of evening travel between them (e.g. the pubs in one will be like the pubs in the other, there's no significant draw in one direction or the other).

Plus there's the problem that (unlike some tiny market towns elsewhere in the UK) Bakewell has it's travel demands spread between Sheffield/ Chesterfield/ Matlock (and, to a lesser extent, Derby/ Buxton), so any potential evening demand would be spread between different locations (one bus couldn't tick all boxes). At least with other bits of the Peak District, there's one obvious "destination", so you might be able to put enough bums on bus seats to make an evening service worthwhile (e.g. Castleton and the Hope Valley are fiefdoms of Sheffield, so the 272 runs into the evening - demand isn't significantly split between various different directions).

I'm not knocking Bakewell - it's a lovely day out from Sheffield - it's a nice place to start/end a walk - but it's not a big place and it's not a place that's particularly busy of an evening - Derbyshire CC have tried their best with the budgets allocated to them but public transport is hard when dealing with just a few thousand people spread out over large rural areas.

Maybe I should bookmark this thread for when someone next suggests re-opening the railway since they believe that Bakewell is a significant place to be cut off and would have sufficient passengers to justify through services to Manchester etc...

 

[ashworth]

Unfortunately what is happening in Bakewell is the norm now for most areas away from major towns and cities. Very few of our smaller towns have buses after 7pm or on Sundays. A few months ago I was on holiday near Fakenham in Norfolk, a town with a population twice the size of Bakewell, and there were no buses after approx 6.30 pm. Even worse, a couple of years ago I was in Sittingbourne in Kent, a town with a population of around 60,000 and there were very few buses after 7pm there, although there is a regular train service.

A large number of quite sizeable market towns throughout the country don’t have evening or Sunday bus services. Unless you are in a very large town or city or on a major bus route between two cities, evening buses are now a thing of the past. Bakewell has done well to keep them as long as it has.

 

[Smethwickian]

The last bus to be seen in Bakewell is the 1924 to Buxton.
The last buses to Bakewell are:
1750 from Buxton
1815 from Derby
1850 from Chesterfield
1815 from Sheffield

I know that Derbyshire CC have funding issues but don’t they have some statutory obligation to provide some limited service in such a large geographical area of the county...

Nope, no statutory obligation at all, hence the counties already noted in other threads on this forum, such as Northamptonshire, simply axing all bus subsidies.
Judging by the times above, Bakewell is merely coming into line with lots of small and medium-sized towns I can think of here in the West Midlands, such as Bridgnorth, Burntwood, Alcester, Broadway, Bromyard, Ross-on-Wye, Market Drayton, etc etc etc following funding squeezes in all the shire counties. You would be hard-pressed to reach anywhere off the rail network in much of Shropshire and Staffordshire in the late evening or on a Sunday, for example.

 

[_toommm_]

I remember a few years ago catching what was then a 215 at 10pm back to Sheffield - done with one of their last step entrance double deckers. Seems strange to see the timetable slowly cut back, along with the loss of the historic TransPeak in Manchester...

 

[43055]

Unfortunately this area has been hit hard by evening and Sunday cut backs recency in both Derbyshire and Staffordshire due to funding being cut. Larger areas such as Uttoxeter have non uses at all in the evening's and Sunday's and I have hear that first potteries 32 is being withdrawn in the new year. Fortunately it looks like Trent Barton is trying to improve evening and Sunday services with the villager, ilkeston flyer, sixes (To hourly service on Sundays at Bakewell from no service at all)and rapid one getting a improved Sunday or evening serivce about the last two years.

 

[Robertj21a]

Unfortunately this area has been hit hard by evening and Sunday cut backs recency in both Derbyshire and Staffordshire due to funding being cut. Larger areas such as Uttoxeter have non uses at all in the evening's and Sunday's and I have hear that first potteries 32 is being withdrawn in the new year. Fortunately it looks like Trent Barton is trying to improve evening and Sunday services with the villager, ilkeston flyer, sixes (To hourly service on Sundays at Bakewell from no service at all)and rapid one getting a improved Sunday or evening serivce about the last two years.

As I mentioned earlier, it's quite possible for smaller towns in rural areas to still have a bus service in the evenings or Sundays - but it's usually because one end of the route is a much larger town/city - in your example Derby. That's far from the situation in the example quote originally (Buxton - Bakewell - Matlock).

 

[daodao]

As I mentioned earlier, it's quite possible for smaller towns in rural areas to still have a bus service in the evenings or Sundays - but it's usually because one end of the route is a much larger town/city - in your example Derby. That's far from the situation in the example quote originally (Buxton - Bakewell - Matlock).

It also depends on the attitude of and funds availability to the local authority. Locally, there are Sunday buses on the rural interurban services west of Altrincham to Lymm/Warrington (route CAT5) and Partington (route 247) - the latter also runs in the evenings. There are also weekday evening and Sunday daytime buses on local Altrincham routes. By contrast, Cheshire East has in general stopped funding evening and Sunday bus services as it is more financially challenged. No buses now run south out of Altrincham into Cheshire itself, apart from route 88 to Wilmslow.