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:
“When they said they were going to take it [the bus] away, it was like a slap in the face.”
After the removal of the 104 bus, a voluntary service known as “dial-a-ride” was put on to serve the estate.
Read more:
- ‘Strong support’ for more Harrogate bus lanes
- Improving county bus services an ‘enormous challenge’, says transport boss
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.
“I need to get out of this house, my mental health is suffering.
“We do not get to see anyone. We cannot support the local businesses.”
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The subsidy for the 104 service was withdrawn in May 2014 when North Yorkshire county councillors agreed that town services should no longer be subsidised.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:
“I did not want to take it off. The people were lovely and it is not something that we wanted to do.
“We looked at other ways of reintroducing it. I would love to put it back on, the people were great customers and it breaks my heart.”
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:
“Despite this strategy, I cannot see it returning. There does not seem to be anything in that strategy for local services.”
£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:
“Our Bus Service Improvement Plan does not include details of individual bus services or journeys yet instead outlines how we aim to expand services and support those which already exist. We continue to provide a discretionary £1.5 million budget to subsidise local bus services which provide fixed route and timetabled bus services that are not discretely commercially viable.
“In partnership with our operators, we aim to increase passenger numbers and therefore, through increasing commercial viability in this way, seek to extend the bus network as well as increase frequency of services.
“Through the plan, and based on funding received, we are committed to delivering more flexible, on-demand services following the successful YorBus pilot in Bedale, Ripon and Masham. YorBus is fully accessible, with low floor access and a ramp access for users of wheelchairs, pushchairs and those with mobility difficulties.
“We have just concluded the public consultation on proposals in our enhanced partnership plan. A report incorporating the feedback will go to our executive in March to consider the enhanced partnership with bus operators, with a view to that partnership coming into effect from April 1, 2022.”
