Interestng Ipswich Information

Ipswich Has Two Bus Stations

Tower Ramparts was the home of Ipswich Corporation buses, still Local authority owned today.

Old Cattle Market bus station was the home of Eastern National buses, later First Bus.

Since privatisation and following both competition and First cutbacks, other operators, including Ipswich Buses, will appear as it is the home of the "out of town" network.

There are on-going discussions about merging the two bus stations, but finding a site is challenging. In the meantime, there is a fighting chance that you bus will serve one and stop close to the other.

It was correspondent Andrew who alerted fbb to this.

This is a brand new service scheduled to start on Monday 2nd September. The on-line publicity comes with an excellent route map (as above) but, sadly, it is not a PDF so "goes fuzzy" when enlarged.

Although the web site speaks of its terminus as at Copdock Tesco Extra, its real purpose ks to serve a brand new housing development on a wedge of green fields north of its intended end point.

Ipswich Buses route 13 currently runs to the Tesco ...

... and here is one obligingly doing it.

Unusually for a Tesco, the bus stops right outside the store rather than being relegated to the far reaches of the car park.

As fbb  explored the area on-line he noticed this bus going round the Tesco roundabout.

It was hard to identify behind the weeds (sorry, the environmentally "sound" wild vegetation). But fbb is on the case ...

... and it turns out to be a Felixstowe Flyer!

There is a snag, however ...

The "Flyers" do nut serve Tesco!

But nearby is the Park and Ride site ...

... for which First Bus has the contract using specleally liveried buses in blue.

An Essex County town map shows its proximity to Tesco.

Note, in passing, routes 91 and 93 which will re-appear in a jiffy!

But the new route 20 has a different purpose. It serves a block of new development between the A 1071, the A14 and the A1214.

When the Google Earth satellite had batteries in its camera, development had barely started, but Google Streetview reveals lots of new build ...

... lots of new building ...

... and property under construction right at the end of the cul-de-sac road whereat the 20 will turn.

Once a county lane, now blocked by the A14 ...

... this becomes the spine road of the new estate.

The new route 20 only operates Monday to Saturday off peak, once an hour.

It would appear tht the new block is called Wolsey Grange. Thomas Wolsey spent his boyhood at Ipswich and a plaque records where he spent it.

But that was at Curson Lodge. fbb suspects that Wolsey Grange is a manufactured name, designed to hoodwink the residents into believing that their boxes made of ticky tacky have some historical substance.

The spine road, according to Ipswich Buses is called Popular Lane.

Whoops! The road is actually named after a tree and is called ...

Poplar Lane.

Whoops indeed!

Extra blurb accompanying the on-line timetable refers to buses which could get you to Wolsey Grange at peak times.

One is the 91 ...

... operated by the modest and self-effacing Beestons!

The 93 is operated on tender by Ipswich Buses.

The peak service on 91 and 93 is hardly lavish and there is a good walk to get to them, certainly from the far reaches of the development.

Incidentally, the new 20 uses Hadleigh Road to exit the central area, a road used by the 91 (see map above) and not an existing Ipswich Buses bus road.

Apart from a lack of knowledge of road names at Wolsey Grange, Ipswich buses (or the Council that presumably helps with the costs) is to be congratulated on getting a bus into the estate BEFORE it is completed. That policy was normal practice in good old municipal days. 

It rarely happens in today's commercial world!

But that is how it S8HOULD be done.

 Next fbb really tried blog : Wednesday 21st Aug