Wilmslow Town Council are looking to meet with Cheshire East Council and bus companies following recent cuts to local services to discuss concerns over the impact this will have on local residents, particularly the elderly.
As reported last week, the Stagecoach 378 bus service from Stockport to Wilmslow, via handforth, will no longer come into Cheshire East but terminate in Grove Lane in Cheadle Hulme from April 24th - instead of travelling on to stop at Ollerton Road and The Green in Handforth before proceeding to Benson Walk, Holly Bank Road, Lacey Green and Bank Square.
A spokesperson for Stagecoach Manchester said: "Falling passenger numbers on the 378 service means it has become no longer sustainable for us to continue to run this service on the section of the route between Grove Lane, Stockport and Wilmslow. We apologise to our customers who are affected by this change. We have provided information to Cheshire East Council who will be evaluating whether they can support a replacement service on this section of the route."
The 378 bus service was previously subsidised by Cheshire East Council at a cost of £23,000 per annum but having been identified as 'low priority' the support was withdrawn in 2012.
In addition the Arriva 130 has been reduced between Wilmslow and Manchester from a half hour to a hourly service.
Speaking about the 378 service at the Wilmslow Town Council meeting on Monday, 20th March, Councillor David Pincombe said "There is a real problem that's coming up now and that is a lot of elderly people in Colshaw, Wilmslow and Spath Lane - people going to work, people visiting hospitals in Stockport etc - are going to be very inconvenienced if this bus service and others are curtailed or even reduced in number during the day."
He added "I know the 130 has been reduced from every half hour to one hour."
Councillor Martin Watkins "This is the Arriva bus service 130 and it is plastered all over the buses that there is a service every 30 minutes but they've changed it so there is only one bus every hour from Wilmslow to Manchester, or Manchester to Wilmslow, but there is a half hourly service run between Wilmslow and Macclesfield."
A spokesperson for Arriva Northwest said "The timetable for the 130 changed with effect from 30 October 2016, when the section of the route between Manchester and Colshaw Farm Estate (just north of Wilmslow) was reduced to an hourly frequency (from half-hourly).
"The rationale behind this decision was, despite numerous attempts to improve the service and make it more attractive to customers, including significant investment in high specification vehicles (the service was converted to our premium Sapphire specification at the end of September 2015), the service 130 has not proved commercially viable for a number of years. In October 2016 we took the decision to reduce the timetable on service to hopefully improve the long term future of the service."
Councillor David Pincombe added "I think what is concerning, certainly to a lot of the residents in the two estates that I've mentioned, is the fact that even now they talk about when it comes to 6 o'clock they cannot get a bus, they cannot go out they are stuck.
"If this is the sign of the times then we are going to be under some considerable pressure. We are going to have an elderly society which is increasing, we are going to have more cars on the roads, we are going to be reducing the number of bus services and its going to have a major impact on the elderly population in both Wilmslow and Handforth."
He continued "I think we should get all the heads around the table and I think we should thrash out and have a review of the transport bus service in this area so at least we will be able to have facts that we can give to the residents. At the moment they are blind.
"A lot of them didn't know that the service was going to curtailed from the end of April."
Martin Watkins added "There needs to be a joined up transport, rail, bus, cycle set up. To show you how ridiculous it is, if you reminder the X57 service, which is also a Stagecoach service, it terminates at Woodford but how much does it take to just bring it up to the hill to the Dean Row roundabout where it could connect to the 130 service. These are the sort of things we are looking at.
"If as I suspect at the moment the thing behind this is a commercial decision, rather than blame the local authorities, perhaps we might conclude that the reason this service is being terminated is because not people are using it. So even if we were to subsidise it, or Cheshire East were to subsidise it, how does that make more people use the service."
Wilmslow Town Councillors agreed to arrange a meeting with Cheshire East Council and the bus companies, along with Handforth Parish Council and Styal Parish Council to establish all the facts.
Photo credit Martin Vincent Photography.
Comments
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The 130 (formerly the 29/30 and 52) used to be every 10 minutes Manchester-Alderley and every half hour (15min on Saturdays) to Macclesfield and ran until midnight. Once an hour the 52 ran to Alderley Circuit too. The 378 was part of the 77/78 services from Wilmslow to Stockport via Woodford or Handforth respectively every half hour alternately until 11.15pm. What a change in the last half century. No wonder our roads are clogged with cars.
The last bus from Handforth to Macclesfield is 17:16.
I do wonder if some of the grants that are given out by Town and Parish Councils would be better used giving a subsidy to preserve bus routes.
There are quite a few on the spath lane estate that use the 378 to get to the village to do there shopping and if you can't walk far how are they going to do it from next month?.
No doubt CEC could find money by not paying salaries well over what the Council can afford to people who turn out to be not what was hoped for & who leave with mega "redundancy" packages.
We have seen the vast sums wasted by CEC on the above, Lyme Green & its various other arms-length "companies" that have resulted in losses. A profit in financial terms will not be made on the CE sector of the 378 but the social cost for not acting will be far more serious.
Is the responsible portfolio holder going to make a statement on this time pressing matter?
If so, when?
Silence is not golden!
It is long overdue for Cllr Stockton to put his head above the parapet.