To be honest, it depends on why a bus station is underwhelming. For me, I don't find bus stations like Evesham or Monmouth or Cinderford underwhelming - these are very small market towns. The bus stations might be pathetic but that they actually have one is perhaps a surprise in itself. So I'm not underwhelmed as I really have low expectations for places like these.
Instead, I think it's more about the difference between expectation and reality. Of course, you have many places that now have no actual bus station when they really should have something (thinking of places like Salisbury) and even the new Interchange in Weston super Mare is really just a load of new bus shelters on a road. No facilities though the real time train timetable display is actually good.
Now yesterday had a really good example of an underwhelming bus station. I went to Dewsbury (and yes, there are plans to improve it) but it is the epitome of underwhelming. Firstly, it's actually oversized in terms of the footprint (the miserable coach stand which is a remnant of the old bus station) and the huge waiting areas. Then you have the closed travel centre, empty retail units - it is just depressing.
What a change in Evesham. Used to have a decent sized Midland Red West depot and most of the services were run by them.
And why run to Tewkesbury and not the far more important Cheltenham?
Services in Evesham were massively cut in the late 1970s when the very first Viable Network Projects were done by the National Bus Company when they realised that with no Birmingham/Black Country services, Midland Red was losing a huge amount of money. The depot was subdivided, the bigger half leased to a dairy for garaging milkfloats, and the depot reduced to about 12 vehicles.
In First days, it had a slight resurgence when they won some tenders in the Stratford area. Otherwise, it was reliant on two routes (to Redditch and to Worcester) plus a few tendered scraps to places like Broadway and Long Lartin.
Because of a simple thing called County Borders.
The Tewkesbury to Evesham bus is funded by Worcestershire Council and Tewkesbury is just over the border and the route covers through the villages and basically links them to the closest town to the border. A bus to Cheltenham would require an operator to do that commercially and sadly Stagecoach don't want to try it which is a shame as they would have the best opportunity for it by extending the Stratford-Evesham 28 down to Cheltenham. If done relatively fast, it could be done faster than the train (which is currently Stratford-Birmingham-Cheltenham)
The other operators around Evesham and Cheltenham are only after tenders and don't really give a stuff about commercial services. You can probably add to that Worcestershire and Gloucestershire aren't exactly innovative or really pro bus and so the chance of them working together to get a significantly improved service I feel is rather unlikely.
I do think that there is good potential though for a Cheltenham to Evesham bus. Just no one will do it.
County borders have nothing to do with it. As well as the 540 Evesham to Tewkesbury, Boomerang Bus Co ran the tendered 545 from Evesham to Cheltenham until they closed down c.2004, running from Evesham via Kemerton and then through the crossroads at Ashchurch Depot and to Cheltenham from there so it has been tried before. After that, the 540 was also extended from Tewkesbury to Cheltenham in the Veolia (Astons) days, so on top of the former Bristol Omnibus, that's three times see link
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/r...heltenham-tewkesbury-bredon-ashton-under-hill
Problem is that the A46/A435 is pretty quick into Cheltenham; you can do it in not much more than 30 mins. You have to divert to serve the villages like Ashton and Sedgebarrow as if you run a direct service down the A46, there just aren't many villages between Evesham and Teddington Hands - only Beckford. Then nothing until you reach Bishop's Cleeve and then you have frequent local services. So a fast route simply doesn't have many places to pick up at - the A46 is a weird road in that respect
The 540 does that job of serving places like Sedgebarrow but it also has to serve Kemerton and Conderton and then into Bredon - it would seem perverse if it got that close to Tewkesbury and then DIDN'T go there. When the council cuts came to Worcestershire in the early 2000s (they aren't a great council for supporting buses), the 545 was both less busy, less resource intensive and so easier to cut. Think you're a bit harsh on Gloucestershire CC - they have generally supported services and been decent if somewhat staid.
Also, whilst I agree on the quality of local operators like LMS, and even Cresswells, I will also support Stagecoach (or at least of old). They did develop the 28 to provide a clockface timetable and earlier/Sunday journeys, the 71 Tewkesbury to Gloucester was a mishmash of Swanbrook journeys til they won the tender and developed that route (some s.106 funding?) whilst the 41 Tewkesbury to Cheltenham was half hourly and they developed that off the back of Kickstart funding.
Probably best leave it there before the mods feel they need to intervene.
There used to be a Cheltenham to Evesham service run jointly by Bristol Omnibus and (for some reason) Stratford Blue using double deckers. It did meander a bit, though. I remember travelling on it to visit my grandparents in Kemerton which is cetainly not on a direct route.