Not as bad as I thought but having the last bus at 1815 is pretty poor. I’m guessing no Sunday service either? I stand by my comment about bus services in Worcestershire being abysmal.
The county council has next to no money left to subsidise buses, like most other shire counties across the country. Oxfordshire provides no subsidies whatever and services there are are even worse - ie largely non-existent - than Worcestershire, outside the limited number of places where commercial operation is viable.
GWR provides a fast train service out to Pershore and Evesham (the places where most people are going to the east of Worcester) though the evening until 22.50, taking 20 minutes to reach Evesham. The buses take an hour - which one do you think people used, even when the buses ran a bit later into the evening?
I may have been a tad negative when I said the whole thing is a white elephant. now I think about it, those fields will be a huge new housing sprawl within 5 years given recent policy on house building. Ready made customer base for the station.
It was never going to be a white elephant, when it has been near-impossible for years to get a parking space at Worcester Shrub Hill unless you get there very early in the morning, on top of the limitations of Worcester's road network, which make getting there less than straightforward, which is one of the reasons why some people from the area are in the habit of driving all the way to Warwick Parkway to get a train to London.
Development around the station is going to be a way off, as there are areas of land closer to the city that are first in the queue.
It pains me to say it but even a supporter of bus connections would have to admit that an hourly service is not going to attract any significant patronage. Too many will find the wait for their train to be too great, or they'll fear missing the train by 5 mins. The 18.15 finish also kills it off.
You know this for a fact, do you? People connect between Cotswold Line trains at Moreton-in-Marsh and buses running on 90-minute and two-hourly frequencies on routes that finish in the early evening. I see no reason why people living in the south-eastern part of Worcester, or the villages to the east, served by the X50/51 won't use the bus to and from the station if it suits their journey needs.
Bus subsidies are not a statutory duty for county and unitary councils. Funding services like social care is, so that's where what money they get is going to be spent, as they have no choice in the matter.