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From last week, passengers travelling on Lonsdale Buses’ service between Lancaster and Skipton (picture above) suddenly found that the £3 fare, capped under a government scheme, no longer applied throughout the route and they were being asked to pay again if their journey took them across Kirkby Lonsdale and/or Settle. This was said to be because the through journeys were registered as separate services either side of those points.

Following discussions between the operator and the Bus Users’ Group, the fare cap has been reinstated for journeys across Kirkby Lonsdale, such as Lancaster to Ingleton or Lancaster to Settle, but passengers continuing to Skipton will have to pay again from Settle onwards. We are awaiting further clarification regarding the effect on through journeys to Ingleton and Bentham on service 583 that were initially also affected.

Cheaper on the app?

Some passengers may find it cheaper to take advantage of special tickets now available on Lonsdale Buses’ new app. all of which give unlimited travel on all the company’s services (excluding special school buses) for the period covered.

Day Ranger Ticket – £9

Lonsdale Network Weekly – £25 adult; £20 under 19s

Lonsdale Network 31-day rider – £95 adult; £75 under19s

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

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

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.

With the lifting of the government’s cap on single bus fares in England from £2 to £3 from the start of the year, Stagecoach has announced details of its fares that will apply when services resume after the New Year break on Thursday, 2nd January.

All medium and long-distance fares from Lancaster, to places such as Morecambe, Carnforth, Galgate, Preston and Keswick will rise to £3, but will still offer substantial savings over the fares that applied before January 2023.

Local Fares

For shorter journeys, there will be fares of £1.80, £2 and £2.30, according to distance. Whilst some passengers currently paying £2 will see an increase of 30p, others will continue to have their fares frozen for a further twelve months, whilst others will experience a small reduction.

The £1.80 fare will take passengers from Lancaster city centre as far as Lily Grove on Greaves Road; Palatine Avenue on Bowerham Road; Scale Hall Spar on Torrisholme Road; Scale Hall Road on the 6A; Noel Road on service 7; Westbourne Road on service 11; Hill Road on Halton Road on the 49 and Barley Cop Lane on the 55 and 555 along Owen Road.

The new £2 uncapped fare will apply to a small number of journeys, including those to Lancaster University (on all services), Hazelrigg Lane on services 40 – 42 and Hathaway Road on service 7.

For £2.30, passengers can travel as far as Lancaster & Morecambe College on service 100; White Lund Industrial Estate on the 6A; Kellet Lane on service 49 and Beaumont College on the 55 and 555. This fare will also apply to those stops on services to Marsh, Vale and Ridge not covered by lower priced tickets.

The new fares are in the Stagecoach Journey Planner and can be checked by making a “Plan jour journey” enquiry and setting the date to 2 January or later.

Day, Week and Longer Tickets

Stagecoach has chosen not to increase the price of its Daily, Weekly and longer period tickets. A Bay Area DayRider will remain at £5.70 and will therefore now offer a small saving over two £3 capped single fares for journeys such as Lancaster to Morecambe.

Similarly the 7-Day Bay MegaRider price has been frozen at £21, meaning that passengers who have been travelling five days a week at a cost of £20 (10 x £2 singles) will suffer only a small increase of £1 a week and will also gain free travel on the remaining two days.

Stagecoach has announced details of amended timetables over the Christmas and New Year period, between 23rd December 2024 and 5th January 2025.

Services will be broadly similar to those in recent years. During this period, services will run to a SATURDAY timetable with the following exceptions:

Despite them being two of the busiest nights of the year for celebrations and “going out for the evening”, most Stagecoach buses will be tucked up in the garage by 19.00hrs on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve (neither of which are public holidays). For some services this means a particularly early shut down, with the last bus on the 51 from Carnforth to Silverdale being at 15.45, returning from Silverdale at 17.08.

The 555 Lancaster-Kendal-Keswick also closes down earlier than last year, with the last bus from Keswick to Lancaster being as early as 14.30 and from Kendal at 16.15. The last northbound buses on this service will be at 14.05 to Keswick and 17.50 to Kendal.

No buses will run on Christmas Day, whilst on Boxing Day a limited daytime-only timetable will be in operation on services 1A 2X 5 6A 41 55 and 100 only.

There will be no buses on New Year’s Day, and a Saturday timetable will be in force on all services on Thursday 2nd, Friday,3rd and Saturday 4th January

Normal service resumes on Sunday 5th January.

For full details of the amended services, including Boxing Day timetables, follow this link.

Details of services provided by Lonsdale Buses will be posted once we receive them.

Following representations from the Bus Users’ Group, passengers and employers on Caton Road, it appears that a compromise has been reached over the proposed withdrawal of stopping places on the Park & Ride service.

Our previous post reported that with effect from today (2 December), following an edict from the county council, passengers would no longer be allowed to use the service to travel to and from anywhere other than the Infirmary, city centre or the Park & Ride site, thus inconveniencing many people using it to get to work at the businesses along Caton Road.

However, Lancashire County Council, which contracts Lonsdale Buses to run the service on its behalf, has confirmed that stops at the Holiday Inn / Lancaster Business Park will remain open to passengers. It is also asking Lonsdale Buses to add the stops in Parliament Street to the registered list of stopping places.

Limited Stops

Notwithstanding a comment made on our previous post, the Council maintains that the service was always intended – and registered – as a limited-stop service and it is still unclear to the Bus Users’ Group when and how local passengers began to be carried.

In an official statement the Council said:

“The Caton Road Park & Ride service is operated by Lonsdale Coaches (sic) under contract to LCC and has operated on the basis of a limited-stop service between the Park & Ride site and the city centre from the outset.

“However, over the years a number of customers (sic) have been using the service to/from the Business Park on Caton Road

“Following concerns raised by them after it was decided to revert back to the original limited-stop arrangement we have agreed with Lonsdale Coaches to include the Business Park stops as official bus stops on the route.”

Separately, the Council has confirmed to the Bus Users’ Group that the full list of stops to be observed is as follows:

On journeys to the Park & Ride site:

Lancaster Royal Infirmary

Queen Square

China Street

Lancaster Bus Station (Stand 4)

“Skerton Bridge” (by which they mean Parliament Street)

Lancaster Business Park (Holiday Inn)

Park & Ride Site.

On journeys towards the Infirmary:

Park & Ride Site

Business Park (Premier Inn)

opposite Sainsbury’s (on North Road)

opposite Infirmary (to set down only)

Lancaster Royal Infirmary.

Unfortunately, the council does not feel able to open up any further stops on Caton Road as it feels this would jeopardise timekeeping on the service.

Compromise

Again notwithstanding the comment on our previous post, the Council has confirmed that the service registration will be amended to reflect the new position and to ensure that online information sites such as Google Maps and Traveline are correct and a revised timetable leaflet will be issued and bus stop displays amended.

Whilst the reason for this change that has caused so much upset remains unclear, LBUG is just pleased that an acceptable compromise has been reached and that passengers can still get to and from their place of work.

UPDATE: We have heard unofficially that buses will continue to observe the stops at the Holiday Inn and Lancaster Business Park, but this has not been officially confirmed.

Lonsdale Buses has announced that with effect from Monday, 2nd December use of Lancaster’s Park & Ride service will be restricted to passengers travelling between the Caton Road Park & Ride Site and Lancaster City Centre and Infirmary.

When introduced, in 2016, the service was always intended as a non-stop link between the parking site just off junction 34 of the M6 and the city centre. In 2019 it was extended to run to and from Lancaster Royal Infirmary and doubled in frequency to cater for staff and visitors at the hospital.

Despite requests from the Bus Users’ Group and potential passengers, including employers of factories and workplaces along Caton Road, the County Council, which sponsors the service, always insisted that it was not for local use.

The buses have never been particularly well-used. Provision of the Park & Ride car park was a planning condition of construction of the then-controversial Heysham Link Road (now known as the Bay Gateway), although that requirement did not extend to funding a bus service! Eventually, no doubt embarrassed by the existence of an underused car park, the powers-that-be managed to come up with some funding to provide a bus service into the city.

The initial service was not very attractive, with buses running just once every 30 minutes into town and with no bus priority to give passengers any advantage over using their car. Unsurprisingly, despite dropping plans to charge for car parking as well as for the bus and allowing concessionary pass holders to ride for nothing, passenger use remained low.

In 2019, the NHS, struggling with a shortage of car parking space for staff at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, provided extra funding that allowed the service to be extended to the Infirmary and doubled in frequency. Ridership rose, although there were still plenty of empty seats.

Local passengers carried

At some stage, the service was altered so that buses observed all stops, which resulted in more passengers using the service, especially to reach various workplaces along Caton Road.

This was good news for passengers, but the public record of the service’s registration with the Traffic Commissioner was never altered and this states that only the following stops should be observed.

Lonsdale Buses doesn’t produce a timetable for the service, but the county council’s version, both in print and online, also appears to confirm it as a non-stop service.

Now, for reasons that are not entirely clear, County Council has instructed Lonsdale Buses to stick to the registered bus stops only.

Unsurprisingly, the move has not gone down well with passengers or with employers at businesses on Caton Road. A spokesperson for one of these said:

 “This decision has disrupted the daily routines of many working professionals. Several of my colleagues are now unable to arrive at work on time, as the added walking time from the park and ride stop is incompatible with their start times. This adjustment has caused unnecessary stress and forced changes to work patterns and is causing significant stress.“

“This decision severely impacts individuals with limited mobility, who now face an unreasonable expectation to walk from the Park and Ride to their offices. Caton Road is not fit for safe pedestrian use—its poor maintenance and lack of gritting during icy weather render it treacherous, particularly in winter conditions. Additionally, the pedestrian pathways along Caton Road are unsafe during and after rainfall due to poor drainage and maintenance. The road frequently floods, leaving pedestrians no choice but to navigate puddles or risk being soaked by passing vehicles splashing water onto the path. This issue exacerbates the already dangerous conditions on Caton Road and further demonstrates why expecting Park and Ride users to walk from the main stop is impractical, unfair and hazardous.“

Jim Davies, Chair of the Bus Users’ Group said:

“The Park & Ride service requires significant funding from the county council to operate and it appears illogical and unfair that this public money is not being used fully to benefit the travelling public”.

The alternative services to the area, the 81 and 82, are infrequent and have a shorter operating day than the Park & Ride. They also do not serve the hospital, which is an important destination for people living near Caton Road.

The Bus Users’ Group has therefore joined employers and passengers in calling for the County Council and Lonsdale Buses to allow the full use of the service to all passengers at the earliest opportunity.

Lancashire County Council is set to receive over £25m in funding for bus service improvements in 2025/6.

The sum was revealed today by the Department for Transport press along with details of grants totalling £955m across England. £243m of that sum will be paid to bus operators as part of a long-standing grant that was originally designed to compensate them for the duty paid on bus fuel, with the remaining £712m being paid to local authorities to improve services.

Lancashire’s allocation the largest of all non-metropolitan or combined authority areas and it follows £34m received to implement the Bus Service Improvement Plan for the three year period ending in March next year. As the £25m is intended just for one financial year it represents a considerable uplift. The funding is split almost 50/50 between “capital” (for things such as bus lanes, bus stop improvements, real time information etc) and “revenue” (to support non-profitable bus services).

The investment has been designated to enhance popular routes, protect rural services and increase bus use for shopping, socialising and commuting. It will prevent service reductions on at-risk routes and the Department for Transport claims it will improve punctuality across England, to bring an end to the current postcode lottery of unreliable services.   

Change to basis of funding

In recent years, said a spokesperson, services have consistently suffered from complicated and inconsistent funding, which has ultimately impacted the passenger. Today’s reformed funding settlement marks a departure from that approach with a simplified commitment from the government, giving bus providers the certainty they have long been calling for.  

As part of this investment, the way funding is allocated has been reformed, meaning it will be allocated based on place need, levels of deprivation and population. This will stop areas competing for funding as in previous years, which in turn wastes resources and delays decisions.  

Jim Davies, Chair of the Bus Users’ Group said:

“Although the change away from competitive bidding to a systematic analysis of needs approach is welcome, the grant is only for one year. Therefore the “certainty” offered to bus providers is limited. Assuming the government intends to continue funding these improvements we would like to see that certainty extended for several years ahead in any future announcements”

£3 Fare Cap

Alongside the £955 million, £150 million has already been committed to step in and cap fares at a maximum of £3, with an inflationary limit also set to ensure that other fares are not automatically increased to £3. The cap is designed to help people with the cost of living and everyday travel costs and will now run until 31 December 2025, enabling savings of up to 80% on some routes.   

What will it mean for Lancaster?

Because the funding has been allocated without the need for a bid from local authorities, it is unclear how they intend to spend it at this stage, but council officer, Matthew Moll, who manages the Enhanced Partnership between Lancashire County Council and the area’s bus companies will be speaking at the next meeting of the Bus Users’ Group on Thursday, 21st November (13.30hrs at Lancaster library) when it is hoped he can give us an update on plans.

Stagecoach’s new Winter edition of the Lakes Guide, valid from 4th November, sees a number of changes to timetables, including the 555 and 755 that link Lancaster and Morecambe to the Central Lakes.

Service 555 Lancaster-Keswick

As usual, the additional journeys that operate via the M6 between Lancaster and Kendal are withdrawn for the winter period. This includes the Sunday morning and afternoon journeys that ran for the first time this summer. Again as is usual, the winter Sunday timetable sees extra buses at 08.20 from Kendal to Lancaster and 18.45 return, both running via the motorway.

On Monday to Saturday, the 05.40 Kendal to Lancaster bus runs five minutes earlier and arrives Lancaster at 06.56. The 07.05 Lancaster to Keswick bus leaves Lancaster runs five minutes earlier at 07.00 but has extra running time so that arrival times at Kendal (08.27) and Keswick (10.08) are unchanged.

There are also new evening journeys funded by Westmorland & Furness Council. The 18.30 bus from Keswick to Kendal is extended to Lancaster, leaving Kendal at 2015 and arriving at 21.26. There is also a new bus at 21.30 from Lancaster that arrives in Kendal at 2241.

The new 555 timetable is on this link

Service 755 (Heysham (Ocean Edge) – Bowness-on-Windermere

The changes to the 755 are more radical. In recent years this service has been almost unique in having a seven-day-a-week timetable, with very little variation between Mondays to Fridays and weekends. It has also remained largely unchanged since being extended at the Heysham end to Ocean Edge in 2021.

Now there are separate Monday to Friday and Saturday & Sunday timetables with buses running at different times.

On Monday to Friday there is an extra journey at 11.05 from Ocean Edge to Euston Road and the 13.50 from Ocean Edge to Euston Road is extended to Bowness in school holidays. Also in school holidays, the 16.15 Morecambe to Bowness bus will start back from Ocean Edge at 15.50. The journeys at 16.50 and 19.05 from Ocean Edge are withdrawn and replaced by a journey to Euston Road at 18.05

The 09.45 Kendal to Morecambe bus is extended to Ocean Edge, arriving at 11.03.

The 16.27 Euston Road to Ocean Edge is withdrawn.

In Lancashire school holidays there is a new journey at 16.05 from Bowness to Ocean Edge. On schooldays this will start from Euston Road at 17.37.

The Saturday and Sunday timetables are completely different and the full

755 service is shown on this link.

Full details of all Stagecoach services in the central Lakes area are shown in the new guide and a copy can be seen at this link: Lakes Guide Winter 2024-5

Copies are also available at Lancaster bus station and on board the 555 bus.