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18
Feb 2022
Fresh calls to reinstate Harrogate Wedderburn bus
Fresh calls have been made to reinstate a Harrogate bus service which was scrapped more than three years ago.
The 104 service between Wedderburn Road and Harrogate town centre was removed in November 2018, despite efforts from residents and councillors to save the service.
Locals say the scrapping of the service has left elderly and disabled residents cut adrift and forced to pay for taxis to get into town.
However, with North Yorkshire County Council bidding for a £116 million to help fund bus services, there have been renewed calls to reinstate the service.
Removal was a 'slap in the face'
Lynne Hallums lives on Stonefall Drive, which the bus used to serve as part of its circular of the Wedderburn Estate.
She has chronic nerve pain, fibromyalgia and has to wear a hearing aid. Lynne used to take the 104 into town around four times a week.
She said the bus used to serve a large elderly community, all of which knew each other. It was also a means of getting to Mowbray Square medical centre and the hospital.
But now she says the removal of the service has left them without regular transport and cut them off as a community.
Lynne said:
After the removal of the 104 bus, a voluntary service known as "dial-a-ride" was put on to serve the estate.
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However, Lynne says that the voluntary service needed to be booked in advance and did not help those who wanted to go into town regularly.
Meanwhile, elderly and disabled residents are forced to either walk to Wetherby Road or Knaresborough Road to catch a bus.
Lynne bought her house on Stonefall Drive 12 years ago and said the bus stop outside her house was a key selling point.
However, she says she is now considering moving after two years of covid lockdowns and the lack of a regular service to get into town and meet people has had an affect on her mental health.
Renewed calls to reinstate
The subsidy for the 104 service was withdrawn in May 2014 when North Yorkshire county councillors agreed that town services should no longer be subsidised.
The decision was made in an effort to save the council £1.1 million and Connexions, which operated the service, subsequently stopped running the bus in 2018.
Craig Temple, director of the company, said the removal of the subsidy was the starting point which led to the service being stopped.
He said:
He added that the loss of subsidy, drop in passenger numbers due to covid and the lack of small buses in its fleet to be able to serve Wedderburn meant it was unlikely that the company would be able to reintroduce the service.
However, residents, local councillors and Andrew Jones, Conservative Harrogate and Knaresborough MP, have called for it to be reinstated.
Ahead of the county council bidding for funding for improved bus services, Mr Jones said he hoped a Wedderburn service would be included in its proposal as the removal of the service had "cut off a whole section of our community from the hospital, the medical centre at Mowbray Square and the town centre".
Cllr Chris Aldred (left) and Andrew Jones MP.
Cllr Chris Aldred, the Liberal Democrat councillor who represents the Fairfax ward on Harrogate Borough Council, to the Stray Ferret that while the removal of the service may make sense commercially, he was “not convinced” it served residents well.
He added that he had raised the idea of reinstating the service as part of the county council’s bus improvement strategy, which it has bid to government for £116 million of funding for.
Cllr Aldred said:
£116m bus strategy
The council's plan asks for £116 million of government cash over the next eight years to fund support for existing and new services, a simpler ticketing system, better information on journeys and other measures.
The aim is for services to cover the whole of North Yorkshire and has been dubbed an “enormous challenge” by Cllr Don Mackenzie, Conservative executive county councillor for highways.
It is hoped these targets will be also met through so-called enhanced partnerships where councils agree to infrastructure improvements in return for better services from bus companies.
The Stray Ferret asked the county council whether any restating of the 104 service to Wedderburn was included in its plan and, if it wasn’t, what measures does the authority intend to implement to help elderly residents with public transport.
Michael Leah, assistant director for travel, environment and countryside service at the county council, said:
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