New Links to ASDA and Morecambe Prom.

Lonsdale Buses service 83 is being re-routed to serve Salt Ayre / ASDA and Bare (c) Darren Hunt

Lonsdale Buses service 83, linking Brookhouse and Morecambe, will have a new route and timetable from Tuesday, 5th May.

The route is being changed to take in the ASDA superstore at Salt Ayre, Bare Lane station and Morecambe Promenade. From Torrisholme Road, buses will run down Scale Hall Lane to Morecambe Road and then via Ovangle Road to ASDA. Returning to Morecambe Road, the service will continue to The Shrimp roundabout and Bare Lane, Bare Crescent and along the Promenade to Central Drive, calling at Festival Market before terminating at Morecambe Bus Station. Buses will return to Brookhouse via the reverse of the inward route.

New Links

The new route provides new links to ASDA and Salt Ayre Leisure Centre from Brookhouse, Caton, Halton, Beaumont, Skerton and Bare as well as a direct service to Morecambe Promenade. It also meets requests from passengers for the service to stop outside the Festival Market and Morrison’s in Morecambe.

Because of the extra distance to be covered and the additional time this will take, the service will operate every 90 minutes with the first bus from Brookhouse at 07.30 and the last return from Morecambe at 18.45 every day except Sunday and public holidays.

The new timetable is on this link 83 – Morecambe – Brookhouse – Kirkby Lonsdale Coaches – Bus Times which leads to a timetable showing the main stops. Ticking the “All Stops” box on the left hand side brings up a timetable showing the estimated times at every stop on the route.

Use it or lose it

Service 83 already fills a number of gaps in the local bus network identified to Lonsdale Buses by the Bus Users’ Group and the revised route follows up on our suggestions for further improvements. The service is operated on a fullt commercial basis and receives no outside financial support, so its continuation depends on how well it is used. The £3 maximum fare cap applies and Concessionary Passes (NoW Cards) are valid subject to the usual rules.

Any Old Iron?

A Manchester cast-off at work in Lancaster

The arrival of two yellow buses from Manchester’s Bee Network in the city has underlined the increasing age of Lancaster’s buses. The eighteen-year-old buses were previously part of the Stagecoach Manchester fleet, which holds the franchise for part of the Bee Network. Transport for Greater Manchester, which manages the franchise, is known to be keen to reduce the age of buses operating on its network and to replace older, diesel buses with new electric ones.

As well as introducing yet another livery variation to the city’s fleet (we make it eight different ones now!)* the move highlights how old the fleet has become. The average age of Stagecoach buses based at Morecambe depot is now around 11.6 years, with more than a quarter being over 15 years and only 25% less than eight years old.

Where did they go?

The last significant influx of new buses came in 2018/19 with a total of 32 double-deckers arriving in two batches and put to work on services 1/1A and 100. At the time, Stagecoach said this represented an investment of £6.8m. The investment was welcomed by the City Council as the city centre is an Air Quality Management Zone where pollution levels exceed legal limits and the cleaner-engined new buses would help to correct this. A further sum of £288,000 was provided by the council to retro-fit older buses with new engines at the time.

It appears from the website Bus Times.org that of the 32 buses delivered in 2018/9 only 26 now remain at Morecambe depot, the rest having been transferred elsewhere. To replace them have come a motley collection of sixteen, eighteen and even nineteen year old buses.

Exception to the rule

Last July, Stagecoach’s Commercial Director told the Bus Users’ Group that there were no plans for new buses to be delivered to Morecambe as the Group was focussing its vehicle-replacement policy on electric buses, which Morecambe isn’t equipped to run.

There has been one exception since then, with the arrival of three recent smaller buses that are required to work the 88/89 service to Knott End, as Lancashire County Council imposes an age limit on buses used on its contracted services and none of the available existing fleet met that limit.

Electric?

Lancashire County Council and Stagecoach are keen to see electric buses operate from Morecambe, but a bid to the government’s “ZEBRA” scheme for the necessary funding was unsuccessful. The county council is believed to be still interested in pursuing the matter and is hopeful of identifying alternative funding.

*The eight different Stagecoach liveries to be seen in Lancaster are:

The new “we’ve got you” dark blue

The previous standard “local bus” livery

The standard livery before that (the “beach ball”)

The Lakes blue/green

The Lakes with 555 branding

The British Legion blue (1 bus)

The Ribble historic livery (1 bus)

Bee Network yellow (2 buses, presumably temporary)