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Cheshire Bus News (was East Cheshire Bus News)
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D&G will not be accepting Cheshire Travelcards from 1 September due to technical issues (I guess that is when they will introduce their new ticket machines). They are hoping to start accepting Travelcards at some point in the future, but that's an effective 15% fare increase in the meantime.
The Travelcard discount was taken away on the 88 route 1 week after D&G started running the service. Apparently the reason was the contract states Cheshire East get all the revenue from the route (with the exception of local fares within Knutsford) and they didn't want a few people paying £4.25 instead of £5, despite the fact they should be encouraging both operators and passengers to use the Travelcards.
Just to clarify, D&G will cease travelcard top ups on 1 July. Travelcards will no longer be accepted for payment from 1 September.
An extra 75p for a return to Crewe will make driving to the station and paying for a day's parking more economical than taking the bus. What a shame.
There's also a form to fill out if you want a refund on any unused credit but it has to be posted, with your Travelcard, at your own expense and your Travelcard will be cancelled. So unless you have a lot of credit on the card and unlikely to ever a bus where Travelcard discounts are offered, it's probably not worth doing.
Out of interest is the route you use one of the subsided ones 'under review'?
I don't think so. My route is the 85.
D&G booklet indicates a Staffordshire CC subsidy for the early, late and Sunday and Bank Holiday services but no Cheshire East subsidy so it should be safe until Staffordshire CC decide to review their bus subsides.
Just as a sideline, and maybe off topic, Handforth is to lose a lot of its NHS services and the souls there will have to go to Macc' and elsewhere, a lot of genuine hardship will be created; unless you have a car or loads of money. This is simply ethnic cleansing and eugenics, caused by a loss of public transport.
http://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/15931/handforth-set-to-lose-some-outpatient-services.
Wythenshawe Hospital is closer but alas..common sense does not prevail, I am so glad I live in TfGM land
http://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/15931/handforth-set-to-lose-some-outpatient-services.
Wythenshawe Hospital is closer but alas..common sense does not prevail, I am so glad I live in TfGM land
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daodao
Established Member
Shortly after GE2015, I was listening to the Today programme while driving to work and hearing the former CoE (and then local MP) expounding the benefits of DevoManc, which would devolve healthcare responsibility to Greater M/c. After crossing the Bollin for the 3rd time, I realised how much more of a border this tiny river (and the line on the map between Heald Green and Handforth) would become.
East Cheshire may be close to Greater M/c, but political boundaries that have been marked out over the last 50 years mean that it is quite clearly separate organisationally. East Cheshire authorities (Council/CCG etc.) have limited interest in promoting cross-boundary services. Car-less residents of Colshaw Farm and Wilmslow still have a half-hourly weekday bus service (130) to the DGH officially serving them.
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Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Are you saying that the Handforth Health Centre, that covers this border area of Cheshire East, is scheduled for closure of many of its existing NHS services? Handforth has a number of residential homes for the elderly who are served by that local health centre together with the Spath Lane social housing estate.
The two nearest hospitals to Handforth are Wythenshawe (Manchester remit) and Stepping Hill (Stockport remit), both areas exterior to Cheshire East.
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Looking at that article it says for Rheumatology and Respiratory Medicine patients will have to use Knutsford Community Hospital (formley Cranford Lodge Hospital.) Yet many services there were cutback meaning patients who used to be treated there now have to travel to Macclesfield.
These below are my souces of that news, I am sorry it is so bad. The lease on the Handforth clinic ends in October and it is for sale, well the lease is, lots of other are up for grabs as well.
http://our.property.nhs.uk/index.php?id=115&property=935
http://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/15931/handforth-set-to-lose-some-outpatient-services
and for other areas around England
http://our.property.nhs.uk
http://our.property.nhs.uk/index.php?id=115&property=935
http://www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article/15931/handforth-set-to-lose-some-outpatient-services
and for other areas around England
http://our.property.nhs.uk
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So Stagecoach claimed they needed a subsidy of £90,000 per annum to maintain the Wilmslow extension of their 378. D&G have said they'd need a subsidy of £70,000 per annum to keep their Wilmslow to Handforth Dean 378 service operating. In comparison the 99 gets a subsidy of £22,000 per annum.
323235
Established Member
£90,000 sounds a lot for a route that only cost 9,000 per year for sunday journeys a few years ago.
In other news D&G will no longer be serving Rode Heath or Scholar Green on their commercial 78 journeys from September.
In other news D&G will no longer be serving Rode Heath or Scholar Green on their commercial 78 journeys from September.
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I should have also mentioned D&G say they've been getting an average of just 55 passengers per day on the 378. When Stagecoach ran the 378 it wasn't uncommon for services to leave Wilmslow Bank Square with just one ENCTS holder on board.
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Apart from evenings and Saturdays, it'll only go as far as Coppenhall. Sandbach, Alsager and Rode Heath lose their direct daytime link to Leighton Hospital. On weekdays, the 78 will be similar to the old K28 which ran from Nantwich to Leighton Hospital.
Under CEC's proposals of course, the remaining journeys running to Sandbach and Alsager would be cut anyway. Coupled with the withdrawal of services like the 315 and the 32, this would leave parts of Sandbach and Alsager with no buses at all.
Will be interesting to see the timetable when published - if all buses finish at Coppenhall, presumably they are planning to run the service with 1 vehicle (30 minute journey time Nantwich - Leighton Hospital) but it will struggle at certain times because of traffic.
There are also large numbers of schoolchildren travelling to Sandbach on the first northbound bus of the day (usually people standing from Coppenhall) who must also come home at some point, so Cheshire East may have to fund at least those journeys.
I was hopeful that D&G might pick up some of the withdrawn subsidised services from next April, but if they are already cutting back commercial routes that looks unlikely.
There are also large numbers of schoolchildren travelling to Sandbach on the first northbound bus of the day (usually people standing from Coppenhall) who must also come home at some point, so Cheshire East may have to fund at least those journeys.
I was hopeful that D&G might pick up some of the withdrawn subsidised services from next April, but if they are already cutting back commercial routes that looks unlikely.
Is that a "conservative" estimate?Don't worry, council policies will soon bring it back down again !
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Curious. D&G ran the 85 from Nantwich to Hanley for a short while a few years ago. The section from Nantwich to Crewe went via Danebank Avenue and wasn't well used. The route from Newcastle to Hanley is covered by other D&G services. Maybe D&G are combining a few services, as they invariably do.
Baxenden Bank
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The 85 'always' used to run through from Hanley. In the past the route was Hanley to Chester (and Birkenhead or was that an advertised connection?) under Crosville, then Midland Redline. At some point the route was split into Hanley to Crewe (or Nantwich?) and Crewe to Chester. D & G took over the Hanley to Crewe (or Nantwich?) section and subsequently cut the Hanley to Newcastle section.
As always with basic VOSA registration information, without the full detailed timetable I wouldn't wish to comment. It could be a single journey, certain days of the week or every journey every day of the week.
Hopefully it will be rather more direct (and therefore much quicker) from Keele University to Hanley than the First Potteries alternative - round the houses and humps (Pool Dam), hospital and rail station.
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There appears to be a cancellation for the 1A/1B but no new replacement registration - so could be that the extension of the 85 from Crewe to Nantwich is a replacement for the 1 and will run via Marshfield.
323235
Established Member
In Macclesfield we have new 22 seater "breadvan" mini buses on some of the main Arriva routes in the town replacing the previous Optare Solo SR's.
Arriva Breadvan Minibuses
Arriva Breadvan Minibuses
Amberley54
Member
This topic has its own thread, hasn't it?
Also, not a van conversion job as far as Im aware, but a purpose-built body.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
I still remember the term "breadvan" was one that was applied to the original minibus fleet run by the Bee Line Buzz Company in the Manchester region many years ago.
185
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Must have been 1990-1993ish - MidRed for some years did a C84 Chester-Crewe-Madeley-Keele Uni-Newcastle-Hanley, Mon to Sat ...with PMT Crewe doing the two hourly Sunday service. Without fail, PMT would stick one of their G/XRE deckers on the 1030 one off Chester every Sunday. Just kept to the timetable, but only by running utterly flat out. Better than Alton Towers
Photo ©Deltabus
As the C84, Crosville only ran from Chester to Newcastle. Anything past Chester would, as you say, have simply been an advertised connection. Newcastle to Hanley was PMT territory. It was 1986 when the extension to Hanley started, around the time the National Garden Festival was on and was advertised as such.
I think it would have been under Arriva that the service was split into 84 Crewe to Chester and 85 Nantwich to Hanley. The common route between Crewe and Nantwich was to maintain the headway between the two, although the 85 was later cut back to start at Crewe. When D&G took over it was just Crewe to Newcastle, and they added extensions to Hanley and Nantwich, but neither lasted too long.
I notice D&G are altering a few services in North Staffs in September as well, so the extension of the 85 could well replace services at both ends.
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
Must have been 1990-1993ish - MidRed for some years did a C84 Chester-Crewe-Madeley-Keele Uni-Newcastle-Hanley, Mon to Sat ...with PMT Crewe doing the two hourly Sunday service. Without fail, PMT would stick one of their G/XRE deckers on the 1030 one off Chester every Sunday. Just kept to the timetable, but only by running utterly flat out. Better than Alton Towers
Photo ©Deltabus
I asked my good lady wife what she thought of this image and her reaction was "Why is there an advert for a particular woman's ailment on the side of the bus?"...
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