THE town’s bus company Network Warrington says it has had no choice but to withdraw some services due to falling passenger numbers.
The company will be withdrawing services affecting the Lingley Mere, Westbrook, Chapelford and Stockton Heath areas of the town from September 5.
Damian Graham
Managing Director Damian Graham said: “We met with members last night to give them a short presentation and explain the reasons for the forthcoming changes to our bus services, which commence on Monday 5 September 2016.
“The changes will see some routes being reinforced with additional journeys added due to high demand and some routes retimed to offer a co-ordinated timetable to provide a more balanced frequency of services.
“Unfortunately, due to falling patronage, Services 29A/C will be withdrawn, together with poorly used sections of Services 10C and 13.
“However, alternative Network Warrington services are available in the area.
“We would like to assure our customers that all the changes have been analysed through the data provided by the on-bus ticket machine and reflect the high and low periods of demand for our services.
“The company, through its Board and the Executive Directors, must ensure that we remain sustainable for the foreseeable future by constantly reviewing our network.
“As usual, publicity will be made available 2/3 weeks prior to the changes commencing.”
The affected routes will be 10C Fairfield Road, Stockton Heath, 13 parts of Chapelford /Westbrook and 29A/C, Lingley Mere/Westbrook/Chapelford.
13 Comments
Is it any wonder passenger numbers have fallen….it’s too blummin’ expensive to travel by bus as a paying passenger. If it was cheaper I’d happily go from Stockton Heath to Town and back every time I need to go. Instead I go by car and pay to park, as expensive as parking is it’s way cheaper than two bus fares.
Idiots the 29c used to go down old Liverpool Road and go all the way round to Gemini but since they stopped going to gemini people stopped using it. You can’t change something that worked for years then stop it once you’ve broke it. Even UKIP could run network warrington better than these clowns
I was surprised how much my return ticket was today at £5.00 and the other week the bus didn’t stop at my bus stop because the bus sign has been taken down and not replaced. I had to shout to get the driver to stop but by this time he was nearly at the next stop and that’s even after I’d rung the bell. He told e to complain to WBC so I did and I’m still waiting. WBC say that it’s networks responsibility !
if you drop prices you would get more passengers
services in the area to compensate?? yes- if you can get across to Sankey or Old Hall
U need to drop the price to get more passengers as the cheaper bus are get more then network warrington bus
It’s cheaper for me and my 2 daughters to get a cab there and back , than use the bus . Also use train into Liverpool as basically same price of bus . It’s a rip off.
Falling patronage is a direct consequence of the wholly inadequate and grossly expensive service offered by NW. Improve the service, make it less expensive, for heavens sake improve your customer service and the numbers using your service will increase. If you don’t do so pretty soon what little customer loyalty you currently have will disappear.
It’s not surprising that the 10C bus is not being used much, the route it travels to town goes through Stockton Heath then Latchford, then winds all along Loushers Lane, Gainsborough Rd and then along Chester Rd and finally to town centre. It takes 34minutes (if the roads are clear) just to get from Owen’s Corner to town. Who devised such a ridiculous route?
Buses I use sometimes run earlier than supposed to or are late and sometimes don’t even turn up at all.
If it’s so much hassle, and increasingly more expensive to get to town is it surprising that people are not going as often or shopping elsewhere or online?
For people South side of the town going by car to Northwich where parking is easier and cheaper is becoming increasingly more popular.
It’s cheaper for me and my boyfriend to get from bewsey to Stockton Heath in a taxi than it is for us to get the bus it’s diabolical…! I even stopped getting my bus pass and got a bike because of it it’s just to much!!!
From the comments above it is pretty obvious what the general public think is the root cause of NW problems…. they are too expensive. Couple that with the insane desire to keep purchasing ever greener buses at no doubt astronomical prices (probably in order to tick some green agenda box) and you end up in a situation where they are spending money they haven’t got and the only way to balance the books is to steam it off the passengers and cut the number of routes and drivers.
Eventually they will go bust. It is a foregone conclusion as they are adopting business tactics straight out of the funny farm
All new buses and lorries have to have cleaner engines. Is this a bad thing, now we know what damage diesel particles do?
yep, agree with a lot of the above comments. If me and my wife get a bus from the town centre to the Odeon at Westbrook it’s cheaper for us to go via taxi which is ludicrous really when the government encourage people to use public transport. We was also going to go Walton Gardens recently from the town centre but was stunned to discover there wasn’t any buses going to Walton Gardens which seems crazy really and will no doubt affect visiting numbers. It’s obvious to anybody with half a brain that eventually there will be no bus service in Warrington (or certainly a very limited one) which is a crying shame to be honest but obviously that doesn’t worry a lot of people concerned.