Category: Uncategorized

Summer Lakes Timetables Announced

by Jim

Stagecoach has published the Summer 2025 edition of its Guide to bus services in the Lake District, which includes services 555 and 755 to and from Lancaster and Morecambe and which comes into effect on 31st March.

Service 555 Lancaster – Kendal – Keswick

Service 555 in Kendal

Motorway Extras

As usual, the summer timetable sees the introduction of extra journeys between Lancaster and the Lakes running via the M6 motorway. Northbound buses will leave Lancaster at 09.14 and hourly to 15.14 complementing the all-year round service and taking 39 minutes off the journey time between Lancaster and Kendal.

Southbound journeys via the M6 will leave Kendal at 10.40, then Keswick at 12.00 (Kendal 13.40) and hourly until 18.00 (19.35 from Kendal). All the above journeys will run on Monday to Friday between 30th June and 26th September and ALL Saturdays until 2nd November, which is when Stagecoach’s very generous interpretation of “summer” ends.

New peak-hour buses

New for this year are additional peak-hour buses between Lancaster, Kendal and Keswick via the M6 that will run on Monday to Saturday throughout the period of the summer timetable. These will leave Lancaster at 08.10 arriving in Kendal at 08.51 and Keswick at 10.38, returning from Keswick at 16.00 and Kendal at 17.40 to arrive Lancaster at 18.22

Sundays

The Sunday and public holiday timetable is largely unchanged from last summer. The extra motorway journeys leaving Lancaster at 08.14 and 10.14 and returning from Keswick at 16.00 and 18.00 that were introduced last year following a suggestion from the Bus Users’ Group return for another season and as usual the 08.20 Kendal-Lancaster and 18.45 Lancaster – Kendal are withdrawn for the summer.

Service 755 Heysham – Carnforth – Bowness-on-Windermere

Service 755 at Carnforth

After several years of a remarkably static timetable, service 755 gets its second revamp in as many years for the new season.

The biggest changes are on Monday to Friday, especially in the peak, when the long-standing journey at 08.05 from Ocean Edge to Kendal, which only operated in school holidays south of Carnforth, is replaced by a journey starting in Lancaster at 07.20 that runs via the Bay Gateway to Combermere Road (07.35) and then continues through to Bowness-on-Windermere and runs throughout the season.

A return facility is provided by a bus leaving Bowness at 15.50 to Combermere Road (17.42) and Lancaster, bus station at 18.04. This replaces the 16.05 from Bowness to Ocean Edge that ran only in School Holidays north of Morecambe.

There are changes to times of most other Monday to Friday journeys on this service.

Saturday

On Saturday, the timetable is largely unchanged, but there is a small improvement to the evening service with a new journey departing Ocean Edge at 20.40 to Euston Road, utilising a bus that currently runs “not in service” to the depot.

Sunday

On Sunday and public holidays the 16.30 Ocean Edge to Carnforth journey is extended to Kendal, arriving 17.59 and returning from Kendal at 18.07 through to Ocean Edge at 19.25 It provides a connection at Kendal from the 16.30 service 555 journey from Kendal and offers a later facility for visitors to the central Lakes from Morecambe on Sunday.

The X8 Returns

Not included in the Lakes Guide, probably because it is operated by a different part of the Stagecoach group, service X8 provides a fast, motorway service from Chorley and Preston to Keswick and The Lakes, calling at Lancaster’s Park & Ride site at Caton Road. For the coming season the service will operate every Saturday between 5th April and 1st November, calling at the Park & Ride at 10.20 to arrive Keswick at 11.50 and returning from Keswick at 16.30 via Grasmere, Ambleside and Windermere to arrive Caton Road at 18.01.

Service 567 Kendal – Kirkby Lonsdale – Ingleton

Slightly outside the Lancaster area, but probably of interest to local bus users, this service is shown in the Lakes Guide for the first time, being the last of Stagecoach’s interurban services from Kendal to be included.

The move co-incides with the return of the service on a regular basis to Ingleton, with five journeys in each direction between Ingleton and Kendal every Saturday complemenmting the college days-only service currently provided.

Full details of the above and all Stagecoach Lake District services can be seen and downloaded via this link to the Lakes By Bus Guide 2025

As ever, Stagecoach is to be complimented on producing such a high-quality publication that is comprehensive, widely distributed and which has both a “start” and an “end” date that allows the certainty and stability that is so important, especially to new or casual users that must make up a large part of its target market.

Are you sitting comfortably?

by Jim
The existing seating at Common Garden Street in the city centre.

Passengers using one of Lancaster’s busiest bus stops will soon find waiting for their buses a more comfortable experience following an initiative by local councillors assisted by the Bus Users’ Group.

Many elderly passengers and people with disabilities find the existing seating uncomfortable and difficult to use due to it being too close to the ground and with a lack of armrests other than at the ends. As the image above shows there are also large gaps between the benches and therefore insufficient seating for all the passengers using these busy city centre bus stops.

Requests for improvement.

Following requests by passengers to city councillors Gina Dowding and Caroline Jackson to improve the seating Cllr. Abi Mills (who is also LBUG’s vice-chair) was called upon in her role as the council’s disability champion to get something done. Abi consulted with groups representing people with disabilities and through working with them, and after considerable research, was able to identify the sort of seating that was needed.

Solution found

The “Broxap Ilford” seating to be installed is made by a family-owned business based in Staffordshire. Six three-seat units, totalling eighteen seats will be installed at the Common Garden Street stops and will be similar to those below, except they will be painted green.

The new “Broxap Ilford” seating that will be installed.

The seats are higher off the ground than the benches they will replace and the arms will make it easier for people to get in and out of them. The total amount of seating at the stops will also be increased.

Whose job is it?

As with most things involving buses and bus stops the process of purchasing and installing the seats wasn’t straightforward. Permission and agreement had to be obtained from Lancashire County Council as the highway authority, Lancaster City Council, which is responsible for the “public realm” within the city and which also has an involvement in bus stops and also Marketgate, whose property they adjoin and who had provided the original seating and presumably still owned it.

And who is going to pay?

This involved considerable negotiation that took several months and once agreement had been reached it just left the small matter of who was going to pay for it! The City Council had no provision in its budget and the proprietors of the Marketgate site said that whilst they were happy to see the seating replaced they were also unable to fund it, whilst Lancashire County Council originally said that its budget would not stretch to funding the high standard of seating that Cllr Mills and the Bus Users’ Group felt was needed.

Clllr. Mills then approached the Bus Users’ Group for assistance in identifying an alternative funding source. Her approach was timely, because the Group is now a member of the Stakeholders’ Forum of the Lancashire “Enhanced Partnership” through which the County Council and the county’s bus operators work together to improve bus services.

Bus Service Improvement Plan

The Group was able to advise that the Partnership had access to money through the Bus Service Improvement Plan allocated specifically to enhance bus stops. Armed with this information Cllr Mills was able to get the county council to agree to fund the full cost of the chosen seating and to meet the costs of installing it. They even allowed Cllr Mills to choose the colour of the new seats (which will be green!).

Cllr Abi Mills, the Disability Champion at the City Council said:
“I am so pleased that the new seats will be installed soon. It is incredibly important to ensure that we make our environment as accessible as possible for all, and I’d like to thank both the County and City Councils for their support on this project”.

Co-operation

The exercise is a welcome, but all too rare, example of the city and county councils working together rather than seeking to pass the buck and claim that any task is the other’s responsibility. From the Bus Users’ Group’s point of view we were happy to have the opportunity to be involved. The humble bus stop is usually ignored by bus companies and local authorities alike, except when they want to move it or do away with it altogether when it gets in the way, but we see it as the bus industry’s shop window and the point of entry to the bus system for new and existing customers and we are always happy to advise or assist anyone seeking to improve their local stop.