Areas with no Sunday bus provision

[Taunton]

Staying in Somerset, Taunton has no town buses on a Sunday. The only services running (all by First) are 21 to Burnham-on-Sea, 22 to Wellington and 28 to Minehead.

Those have always been the only "good" bus services from Taunton, so not surprising.

On a related matter, I knew back in the 1970s the local urban buses in Perth, Scotland. This quite substantial network had a Sunday timetable quite up to weekday intervals, except it started much later. However, it pretty much never ran. Sunday work was wholly voluntary, and nobody volunteered, if anyone wanted overtime they did so in the week. Given the extremely thin level of publicity as well, almost nothing beyond a bland bus stop sign on a lamp post, everyone expected there were no buses on Sundays, so nobody waited. Sort of self-fulfilling. I believe a special effort was made to run a bus to and from the Royal Infirmary at visiting times, driven by an inspector.

 

[SCH117X]

Thirsk has no Sunday bus service October to April inclusive. Moorsbus M5 provides a limited service May to September - a morning local loop that is repeated after 5pm plus a working to Hemsley returning 5 hours later. Nominally served by Trans Pennine Express the railway station is a good mile and a half from the centre.

 

[Simon75]

That's really surprising for a town of Taunton's size, especially as the town keeps growing. Harlow's town buses are all 2 hourly and often mini-buses on a Sunday. May as well not even bother if that's the best they can do! Doesn't help that one company runs the commercial services and another runs the contracted ones on the same routes, which in the mad world of deregulation means tickets aren't valid on both, even though the route is the same.

No different to when deregulation started, you had the same situation

 

[Martin1988]

Thanks to those who have taken the time to respond. Am sorry I didn't acknowledge this earlier. Interesting to see that 60 (Cannock - Lichfield) and 74 (Cannock - Stafford) will be getting Sunday services again soon. Am pretty sure these were the routes which lost their Sunday provision a few years ago when the funding got withdrawn?

With regards to Shrewsbury, I found some old articles from March 2015 when the Sunday services were withdrawn and it seems as though the affected services were all town/local services. Have longer distance routes such as Telford to Shrewsbury ever run on a Sunday?

I am also aware that Telford has a number of routes running on a Sunday. Is there any reason as to why Telford has been able to sustain Sunday provision whereas nearby Shrewsbury hasn't? Or is it simply the case that Telford Council remain willing to fund the Sunday services that do run?

 

[TheSel]

With regards to Shrewsbury, I found some old articles from March 2015 when the Sunday services were withdrawn and it seems as though the affected services were all town/local services. Have longer distance routes such as Telford to Shrewsbury ever run on a Sunday?

Remember Telford, as we know it, is still a relatively new town, so "ever" is a difficult word to interpret.

If you look at TimetableWorld (an excellent resource), there is a 1968 timetable showing an hourly Sunday service - numbered 917 - which operated hourly from 1050 to 2250, linking Shrewsbury to Wellington, Gadley, Donnington, Lilleshall, Newport and Edgmond. The same resource shows service X93 with Sunday departures from Shrewsbury at 1300, 1700, 1900 & 2100 to Ironbridge and Madeley.

At that time (and referenced in the same timetable book) Shrewsbury also had a broadly two hourly link to Bridgnorth via Much Wenlock (service 964), to Market Drayton (928/929) - for connections with PMT's service 64 to/from Newcastle-inder-Lyne, and a generally hourly link to Hereford via Church Stretton, Ludlow and Leominster, amongst other out-of-town routes.

Cited link here.

To be fair, that's all a little before my time as an active bus enthusiast, but by the late 1970's / early 1980's, when I lived in Wrexham and was very interested in the operations of Crosville, they had a service three times a day on a Sunday linking Shrewsbury and Welshpool, two of which extended across Shrewsbury to Cross Houses Hospital (service D75). This was operated by Welshpool outstation (a sub-depot of Oswestry).