The New Year will see a re-organisation of Stagecoach services 6 and 6A that link the Westgate area with Lancaster and Morecambe, which will see service 33 replaced by two new routes to give an improved service and new links to Bare and Branksome.
Here is a summary of the changes, which will come into effect on 14th January 2024
6A Lancaster – Westgate – Morecambe
The through journeys between Lancaster and Morecambe will continue as service 6A with only minor changes to timetables, the biggest being the retiming of late evening journeys to run five minutes earlier than now and of Sunday trips to run eight to ten minutes later.
6 Morecambe – Westgate
One of the two service 6 journeys each hour between Morecambe bus station and Westgate will be renumbered 6B and will continue to Branksome, Lancaster Road, Sainsbury’s, Burlington Avenue, Beaufort Road, Strickland Drive, Lonsdale Road, Bare Lane, Oak Avenue, Princess Crescent and Marine Road East and the promenade to Central Drive for the Festival Market and Morecambe bus station.
33 Morecambe – Bare Circular
Service 33 will be replaced by new service 6C which will run from Morecambe bus station via Central Drive, Euston Road, Thornton Road, Lord Street, Marine Road East, Bare, Princes Crescent, Oak Avenue, Bare Lane, Lonsdale Road, Strickland Drive, Beaufort Road, Burlington Avenue, Lancaster Road, Sainsbury’s, Branksome, Westgate and then as the existing service 6 route to the Festival Market and Morecambe bus station.
The new pattern retains the two buses an hour between Lancaster, Westgate and Morecambe as well as the four buses an hour between Westgate and Morecambe during the day time, although passengers will have to get used to the Westage bus being either a 6, 6A, 6B or 6C!
Passengers on most of the current 33 route will see the number of buses more than doubled (although the two buses an hour from the bus station will leave at similar times). They will benefit, however, from later departures on service 6C at 1734 and 1834 to Bare and Branksome, whilst the current 160-minute gap in the service on schooldays between 1400 and 1640 is eliminated, with only the 1539 service 6B journey running “school holidays only” and new 6C journeys at 1434,1534 and 1634 throughout the year.
The first bus of the day will be at 0908 from Branksome and 0913 from Bare (currently 0929 and 0935) and the last bus from Bare to Morecambe at 1808 (1813 from Branksome).
Altogether, the number of buses to Bare and Branksome increases from 8 on schooldays / 11 on Saturdays and school holidays to 18 on schooldays and 19 on Saturdays and school holidays.
New Links
The new services open up a number of new journey possibilities for passengers such as
Bare and Branksome to Westgate and the West End and vice-versa.
Westgate and Branksome to the full length of Morecambe promenade between Bare and Regent Road.
Buses in both directions between Sainsbury’s and Westgate, Branksome and Bare.
Commercial or Contract?
Not that it will bother the passengers, but the new services are an interesting mix of commercial and contract operation. The 6 and 6A are fully-commercial services, provided by Stagecoach without any assistance from the county council. The 33 on the other hand was a fully-supported service paid for by Lancashire County Council and which until 2021 was operated by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire. Stagecoach won the contract on retendering in March of that year with an expiry date of October 2023 and it is not clear whether the contract has been extended or whether Stagecoach is now to run the whole service commercially.
The new timetable can be read and downloaded here:
Lancaster Bus Users' Group 