I received a number of complaints earlier this week from residents in Hutton Henry regarding a bus service withdrawn without prior consultation by the Arriva bus company. I immediately contacted transport officers at county hall on their behalf to request contact with Arriva to address these concerns.
I have reproduced below an email from DCC officers giving details of a solution for residents in affected areas:
Arriva is changing many of the services they run without any funding
from DCC, to coincide with the change in the contracts for subsidised service
at the end of October. These make up the main core of the network, including
all the busiest services.
It is unfortunate that Arriva felt that the commercially
sensitive impacts of the changes on corridors where they compete with other
operators meant they were not willing to put their plans into the public domain
in advance.
Their Mon - Sat daytime Durham to Hartlepool service (No 22) is to run
between Wheatley Hill and Hartlepool via Peterlee and Blackhall, not via
Wingate. The frequency goes up to 2 per hour, so together with their new
version of svc 23, overall there will be 4 per hour through Blackhall , every 15
mins.
This does leave a problem for Wingate and nearby areas. However, DCC is going to cover that by revising the current subsidised Durham - Coxhoe -
Wheatley Hill - Peterlee service (No57). This is currently operated by Arriva but
the new contract from 28th Oct has been won by Scarlet Band. Instead of
going to Peterlee, the service will be rerouted to run from Wheatley Hill via
Wingate and Station Town to Hartlepool, on the current route of the 22, except
we will be serving Hutton Henry on the buses from Hartlepool.
This maintains the link between Wingate etc and Hartlepool, very
similar to the present service and provides an opportunity to continue to make
a through journey to Durham albeit on a longer route. Arriva is revising
service 21 to run via Wingate so with the current svc 21A there will be a half
hourly service to Peterlee via Shotton Colliery. Passengers will have the
alternative of using 21/21A to connect at Shotton with the Arriva services
which run every 15 mins between there and Durham.
I do appreciate the change in services creates issues for people
who have bought Arriva season tickets.
We have started formal discussions with Arriva and Go North East
about the introduction of a comprehensive multi-operator ticket scheme covering
all the buses in County Durham. This will provide a full solution to these issues,
but will take some time to come to fruition. In the meantime we are seeking to
make an arrangement with Arriva by which Arriva's student tickets and weekly
tickets will be accepted on the subsidised service with Arriva passing on
to us an appropriate amount of the fare that was paid to them. If this is not
possible, we will introduce weekly tickets for use on the service 58.
People who have an Arriva ticket will be able to obtain a refund from Arriva if
they wish.
I do hope this provides some reassurance. Do get back in touch
if I can be of any further assistance. I am copying this message to Cllr Cox
for his information.
