A route on Ripon’s city-wide bus service is being extended to serve residents living in the Ure Bank area.
Launched last April, the service has guaranteed funding for four years and the prospect of more to follow.
Councillor Peter Horton, chair of Ripon City Council’s transport group, told the Stray Ferret:
“The Ure Bank extension has been approved by North Yorkshire Council and will come on stream from April.
“Usage of the bus service is steadily increasing across the four routes that serve the city and we are delighted that its reach is being extended to take in another residential area in Ripon.”
The runs from Monday to Saturday and city council leader Andrew Williams, who is also the North Yorkshire Council member for the Minster and Moorside division, said:
“We have been able to make this happen with the support of the new unitary authority, in addition to section 106 monies from retail and residential developments in Ripon and money from the city council’s contingency fund.
“Looking beyond the first four years, we will be seeking further section 106 contributions to support the service as more residential schemes, such as West Lane, come on stream.”
Picture: The Ripon bus service covers for routes
Bus service to Upper Nidderdale returns for the summer
A bus service to the very top end of Nidderdale will restart for the summer 2023 season this weekend.
The DalesBus 821 service to Scar House reservoir in Upper Nidderdale will run from Keighley and Otley via the Washburn Valley to Pateley Bridge, then continues updale past Gouthwaite Reservoir to Ramsgill, Lofthouse and Scar House Reservoir every Sunday and Bank Holiday until October 22, 2023.
Buses leave from Pateley Bridge at 11.15am and 2.15pm, returning from Scar House Reservoir café at 12.45pm and 3.45pm.
Connections are available on DalesBus 24, leaving Harrogate Bus Station at 10.20am or 1.20pm.
All single fares are just £2 (£1 for under 19s) as part of the national Get Around For £2 initiative, which the government has just extended until the end of October.
Scar House and Angram reservoirs lie at the top of Nidderdale and supply water to Bradford.
Nidderdale DalesBus 821 is run by the Keighley Bus Company, with financial support from Yorkshire Water, as part of the DalesBus network, which is managed by the volunteer-run Dales and Bowland Community Interest Company.
It joins DalesBus service 822 between Ripon, Pateley Bridge and Grassington, which is already running on Sundays and Bank Holidays for the summer season. Buses leave Pateley Bridge at 11.15am and 3.25pm for Hebden and Grassington, and at 12.25pm and 4.25pm for Fountains Abbey and Ripon.
Full details of the bus to Scar House Reservoir are available online at www.dalesbus.org/821.
Ripon’s new city-wide bus service launches with guaranteed funding
Ripon’s new city-wide bus service, which launched today, has guaranteed funding for the next four years and the prospect of more to follow.
From today, the current Ripon services – RS1 Lark Lane, RS2 Lead Lane and RS3 Gallows Lane – will increase in frequency and see routes extended, as well as operating on Saturdays.
A new route, numbered RS4, will serve North Bridge.
Andrew Williams, Independent city council leader and the North Yorkshire Council member for Minster and Moorside, told the Stray Ferret:
“We have been able to make this happen with the support of the new unitary authority, in addition to section 106 monies from retail and residential developments in Ripon and money from the city council’s contingency fund.
“Looking beyond the first four years, we will be seeking further section 106 contributions to support the service as more residential schemes, such as West Lane, come on stream.”
The new service will be run using buses from Dales & District Travel and North Yorkshire Council.
Fellow Independent councillor Peter Horton, who chairs the city council’s transport committee, said:
“Ripon’s residents have been telling us for years that they want an improved inner-city bus service and after a great deal of detailed discussions, first with North Yorkshire County Council and now the new authority, it has come to fruition.
“We hope that people will become regular users of this sustainable means of transport.”
RS1 has a new timetable and route via Bishopton Lane, Ash Bank Road and Lark Lane which extends via the bus station to St Michael’s Retail Park for the M&S Food Store. It will depart hourly from 7.15am to 6.15pm with additional journeys between the bus station and St Michael’s Park twice hourly.
RS2 and RS3 have a new timetable with an earlier bus at 7.40am and a later bus at 5.35pm Monday to Friday. The daytime service has new times and will run Monday to Saturday.
RS4 is a new route from the bus station to North Bridge via North Street returning via Magdalen’s Road. There are three journeys per day Monday to Saturday.
The services will be run with buses from Dales & District Travel and North Yorkshire Council, with a single journey costing no more than £2 and pensioners with bus passes travelling free. More details are available from www.northyorks.gov.uk/businfo
Pic shows: Cllr Andrew Williams (centre) with his daughter Lilly-May, with Cllr Peter Horton (left) and Paul McMillan, one of the team of drivers providing the new service.
New city-wide Ripon bus service to start on Monday
Residents and visitors in Ripon are to benefit from easier travel with improved bus services to many parts of the city.
The city’s bus network is being boosted to help encourage sustainable travel following a series of new retail and housing developments.
From Monday, the current Ripon services – RS1 Lark Lane, RS2 Lead Lane and RS3 Gallows Lane – will increase in frequency and see routes extended, as well as operating on Saturdays. A new route, numbered RS4, will serve North Bridge.
The current services run between 9.25am and 3.30pm Monday to Friday, and for some time Ripon City Council and the newly formed North Yorkshire Council have been pushing for expansion.
The improvements have been made possible due to funding from developers including CDP Marshall at St Michael’s Park and by Harron Homes at Doublegates and Bishops Glade. Ripon City Council is also contributing, alongside the existing provision made by North Yorkshire Council.
North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for highways and transport, Cllr Keane Duncan, said:
“We are pleased to support these much-needed improvements to public transport in Ripon. The services will be of benefit to all, particularly residents of the new housing developments.
“We have been working closely with the city council, developers and partners to improve the level of service. We want more residents in Ripon, and across North Yorkshire, to be able to choose public transport to get around sustainably.”
RS1 has a new timetable and route via Bishopton Lane, Ash Bank Road and Lark Lane which extends via the bus station to St Michaels Park for M&S Food Store. It will depart hourly from 7.15am to 6.15pm with additional journeys between the bus station and St Michael’s Park twice hourly.
RS2 and RS3 have a new timetable with an earlier bus at 7.40am and a later bus at 5.35pm Monday to Friday. The daytime service has new times and will run Monday to Saturday.
RS4 is a new route from the bus station to North Bridge via North Street returning via Magdalen’s Road. There are three journeys per day Monday to Saturday.
Ripon City Council has been working on the plans for five years. Cllr Peter Horton, who chairs the transport group, said:
“We are delighted to be working in partnership with the new unitary council and are extremely grateful for the assistance of officers in the passenger transport team.”
Store manager at M&S Ripon, Richard Johnston, said:
“This is brilliant news and helps our store become even closer to our community. It means customers further out will be able to enjoy our products and it’s also a great resource for our store colleagues.”
The services will be run with minibuses from Dales & District Travel and North Yorkshire Council. The timetables will be live from Monday next week (April 17) at www.northyorks.gov.uk/businfo
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.
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.
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.”
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.”
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:
Ripon could have a new bus service by April“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.”
A new, comprehensive bus service for Ripon could be up and running as soon as April.
Ripon is served by regular Transdev 36 buses, which link the city with Harrogate and Leeds.
But local buses are limited and Ripon City Council’s transport group has been trying for several years to create a more joined-up service.
Councillor Peter Horton, who chairs the transport group, said plans to create a more integrated bus timetable for all parts of Ripon were being put out to tender by North Yorkshire County Council.
He told Monday’s Ripon City Council meeting:
“The integrated passenger transport authority now has monies available from the Doublegates housing development to help fund the comprehensive scheme we put forward.
“This would serve our growing city up to six days a week.
“The hope is that the service could be operating by April, but that will depend on the response to the tender from bus operators.”
Developers of both the Doublegates scheme off Clotherholme Road and St Michael’s Retail Park at Rotary Way were required to contribute towards the cost of public transport improvements in Ripon, as part of a Section 106 planning agreement.
Cllr Horton said:
“Now that funds are in hand we hope to see matters progress as quickly as possible.”
Uber-style bus services, where people book rides from bus stop to bus stop using an app, look set to be rolled out across North Yorkshire if a trial starting next month is successful.
A year-long pilot scheme will be launched in the Bedale, Ripon and Masham area on July 1.
North Yorkshire County Council is optimistic the scheme, which will cost £1.20 per ride within the zone and also be available to concessionary bus pass holders.
The authority has been facing calls for years from transport campaigners to introduce or at least investigate on-demand services amid protests from some villagers that disappearing bus services left them isolated.
While the conclusions of the county council’s Rural Commission are expected soon, the Campaign for Better Transport has found between 2010/11 and 2016/17 the council cut bus service support by 78 per cent, among the highest reductions in the country.
Passengers will be able to book a bus ride through an app or by phoning the council’s customer service centre.
The bus drivers will be notified about bookings in real time on a screen similar to a sat-nav, featuring software that calculates the most efficient routes. The software will also prevent bookings where there is already a commercial bus service operating to avoid affecting the viability of those services.
A council spokeswoman said the new service differed from taxis in that they might not take the most direct route, passengers may need to wait to be picked up and the service will operate from bus stop to bus stop.
She said:
“We do realise it is quite a different way of offering a bus service so we are having quite a comprehensive marketing campaign to highlight to passengers in the pilot area about how they can access and use it, including a series of roadshows in communities.”
The authority’s leader Cllr Carl Les said he hoped the council would agree upon a bus service improvement plan that included on-demand buses.
He said:
“We all want to see an improvement in public transport, but we don’t want to go back to the days of empty buses running through our villages, because that’s not good for cost and it’s certainly not good for carbon.”
Cllr Les said transport minister Baroness Vere had stated she was a fan of demand-responsive bus services at a recent meeting,
He said:
“I’m really hoping that the pilot will work well, and if it does we will be able to roll it our very rapidly across the county because we will have the support of the minister if that’s what we want to do.”
Cllr Les said while a key plank of Boris Johnson’s plans for a post-pandemic recovery was his Bus Back Better initiative, this raised the question of taking on bus service franchising in North Yorkshire.
He said:
New bus service from Harrogate to Leeds Bradford Airport“I don’t agree with that as an approach. We shouldn’t nationalise buses. That might be the approach that Greater Manchester want to take or even West Yorkshire, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for North Yorkshire.”
A new bus service will set off from Harrogate to Leeds Bradford Airport from the end of this month.
The ‘Flyer’ bus from Transdev will replace the current 747 ‘Flying Tiger’ service from August 30.
An airport return ticket, valid for 28 days, will cost £8 for a single adult and it will cost £15 for a group. A 7-day ticket costs £24 and a 28-day ticket costs £77.
People working at the airport will be able to get a 50% discount on their single, return tickets and weekly tickets for £10.
The Harrogate route will set off on an hourly basis from Harrogate bus station and will take roughly 30 minutes to get to the airport.
It will start at 5.45am from the bus station on weekdays. The last service from the airport sets off at 9.12pm.