GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

[Salopbus]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(27/09/2016 14:19)knutstransport Wrote:  I'm not sure how much you are aware of the history of the 27 route. It was an hourly contracted service using 2 council owned Wright Cadets under Bakers and then under Bowers who became High Peak and was doing well. When the High Peak contract came to an end the council asked them to consider running the route commercially. High Peak agreed to on the basis it would be a 90 minute frequency using 1 vehicle - this is when it all went wrong - that would have worked if all the buses went directly and didn't serve Over Peover and Astra Zeneca but they did continue to attempt to serve Over Peover and Astra Zeneca so the timetable was very unreliable. On top of that the return fare between Knutsford and Macclesfield had been £3.50 but on the first day of the High Peak commercial service it became £4.80 so High Peak lost a lot of passengers before cancelling their commercial registration. Cheshire East put it out to tender with a reduced frequency (similar to what you currently run) but it wasn't awarded as GHA registered the service commercially and then as passenger numbers increased they increased the frequency to hourly for most of the day.

As you say there were reliability issues with GHA in the months before they went bust but the 27 wasn't as badly affected as the 200 service - there were days the 200 service didn't run all day! However, after GHA went bust High Peak agreed to run the 27 service commercially again (Mon-Fri only) on an interim basis and yet again people were put off by higher fares. Also it wasn't clearly communicated that a Saturday service would start under Howards/Springfield or that the weekday service would transfer to Howards/Springfield. The first a lot of people knew about either of those happening was when they saw a Howards/Springfield bus actually running the service.

Yet again heresay gets in the way of the truth. The contract for 27 was coming to a natural end and High Peak decided to continue operating the services commercially on a 90 minute headway, the Council did not ask High Peak to consider commercial operation. Had High Peak not registered the service commercially a tender would have been issued for an hourly service, however once High Peak relinqueshed the commercial operation funding for the hourly service was no longer available so a lesser service was put in place.