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On Jubilee Bank Holidays Thursday 2nd June and Friday 3rd June:
The following DalesBus services will start for the Summer 2022 season on Sunday 15th May:
The full current DalesBus timetable is available online here. The summer timetable will be introduced on Saturday service 75 from 7th May 2022, with buses running between Skipton, Malham and Settle.
Buses will leave Skipton at 0945 and 1430, and Settle at 1135 and 1555. The new service 75 timetable can be downloaded here (PDF file). There are also some changes to Craven Connection service 580 from the same day. The journeys at 1145 from Skipton to Settle and 1230 from Settle to Skipton will no longer run on Saturdays. The new service 580 timetable can be downloaded here (PDF file). The Wensleydale Railway will generally operate as follows during May 2022:
For full details see the website. Several seasonal weekend DalesBus services have now started for the 2022 season, including:
Links to timetables for all the buses now running in the Yorkshire Dales area on Sundays and Bank Holidays are available here. Some of these services were finalised at short notice so please note that online journey planners and real time information displays may not yet show the correct information. Please check this website for the latest timetables before travelling. Revised timetables will be introduced on Western Dales Bus services from 27th March 2022, including:
Bus service 64 between Skipton and Ilkley will follow a different route in Skipton from 28th February 2022. Buses will run along the High Street, The Bailey and Harrogate Road, following the same route as Cravenlink Sunday service 884.
Service 64 will no longer serve Newmarket Street or Otley Road. Otley Road will still be served by North Yorkshire County Council minibus service 73 on Monday to Friday. Barden Moor Road is due to reopen on 26th February, so from 27th February Cravenlink Sunday service 873 between Skipton and Ilkley will revert to the usual route between Embsay and Bolton Abbey via Eastby, Barden Moor and Strid Wood. Major changes will be made to bus services between Lancaster, Kirkby Lonsdale, Bentham and Ingleton from 4th April 2022, following Stagecoach's decision to withdraw routes 80 and 81.
New services 81 and 82 will operate between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale on Monday to Saturday, with services generally every hour during the day between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale via Halton, Caton, Brookhouse and Hornby. Alternate journeys every two hours will operate via Wray, Wennington, Melling and Tunstall (as Service 81) or via Gressingham, Arkholme & Whittington (as Service 82). These services will be operated by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire in partnership with Lancashire County Council, also replacing service 582. Sunday and Bank Holiday Lune Valley services 81A and 81B between Lancaster and Kirkby Lonsdale will be renumbered 81 and 82, to tie in with the Monday to Saturday services and simplify the numbering on the routes. These journeys will continue to serve the Beaumont area of Lancaster between the city centre and Halton and run every hour between Lancaster and Hornby extending two-hourly on either side of the River Lune. Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire will continue to operate their existing Craven Connection through buses from the Lune Valley services for onward travel to Ingleton, Settle and Skipton, which operate in partnership with North Yorkshire County Council. The times will be revised to fit around the revised Lune Valley services. As part of their partnership with North Yorkshire County Council, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire will introduce service 583 running on Monday to Saturday between Kirkby Lonsdale, Ingleton, Burton-in-Lonsdale, High Bentham and Low Bentham. Bus passes will be available to purchase for children attending schools on the expanded Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire network - please complete this enquiry form for details. North Yorkshire County Council is currently (until Monday 7th February) consulting on an Enhanced Partnership Plan which aims to deliver a Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) for the county, subject to the allocation of funding from central government.
Dales and Bowland Community Interest Company are strongly supportive of the vision and objectives stated in the plan to create a high quality coordinated and integrated bus network, which is urgently needed in North Yorkshire for numerous economic, social and environmental reasons. A significant modal shift away from private cars to the use of public transport and active travel is vital to help tackle the climate emergency. We are however concerned that the proposed actions within the Enhanced Partnership Approach will not deliver this vision and objectives, and in particular offer little for the more rural districts of the county, including the Yorkshire Dales National Park and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which are our particular areas of interest. NYCC now spends £1.5m supporting bus services, down from around £6m ten years ago – a drop of 75% which has caused a serious drop in bus services and usage, particularly in more rural areas. Despite the stated aims of the National Bus Strategy to reverse recent declines in bus services, restore evening and Sunday services, the plan does not include any proposals or funding to restore any of the lost bus services, nor to change the policy of not supporting services on evenings and Sundays on an ongoing basis (despite the fact that such services were identified as a high priority by residents in the engagement exercise referred to in section 9 of the plan). North Yorkshire's Bus Service Improvement Plan highlights the fact that the area is one of England’s most popular tourist destinations, with two national parks, presents an area of opportunity for development of the bus network. However there are no proposals to improve the limited service offering in the national parks. Most Sunday and Bank Holiday buses in each area are dependent on short-term fundraising by the Moorsbus and Dales & Bowland CICs, which is not an appropriate or sustainable basis for these important services. The BSIP will do nothing to help maintain and develop these services, except perhaps for some marketing activity. This will be of little benefit if there isn’t a good network of buses available with sufficient capacity for people to use. The climate emergency means that modal shift to public transport is becoming increasingly urgent in all areas, including the Dales, but it appears that North Yorkshire’s plans will not help facilitate this. We are also concerned that the overall plan is lacking in ambition, with a targeted increase in passenger journeys to just 13.2m journeys in 2025, which is significantly less than the over 14m journeys recorded only a few years ago in 2016-17, a long way short of the objective in the York and North Yorkshire LEP Carbon Abatement Pathway to increase bus km by 30% by 2027, as a step towards increasing bus use by 50-100% by 2038. You can provide your views on the plan via North Yorkshire County Council's consultation website until Monday 7th February. |