Park with Pride at Pride Park (1)

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BEYOND BELIEF - AGAIN

Earlier this week a Sheffield correspondent reported that the two city enquiry offices were giving out leaflets for the service changes from 1st November 2015. This despite the fact that several routes had been altered from January 3rd.

Happily (?) the problem has now been solved. As our observant reporter notes:-

Latest at 1600 Thursday 7 January:
All leaflets for services with changes on 3 January removed from both Arundel Gate and  the Interchange without replacement. So now no printed timetables of any kind for these revised services.

Happily? How daft can you get? When the big November change came in there was uproar at the total lack of publicity available until days after the alterations started. So when this month's change happened - NO PRINTED PUBICITY AT ALL

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A Challenge form an ex Derby Resident.

Nestling amongst the verdant dendroid richness of the banks of the River Derwent, is Derby's Travelodge at Pride Patk. If you are a footy fan the name Pride Park Stadium will be all-too familiar. Only it's not called that anymore.

Pride Park Stadium, currently known officially as the iPro Stadium for sponsorship purposes, is an all-seater football stadium located on the Pride Park business park on the outskirts of Derby, England. It is the current home of Football League Championship club Derby County, who moved to the stadium from the Baseball Ground upon its opening in 1997. With space for 33,597 spectators, Pride Park Stadium has the sixteenth-largest capacity of any English football stadium, the twentieth-largest of any stadium in the United Kingdom, and the one hundred and twenty-first-largest in Europe.

So now you know!

As that health and fatness fanatic fbb knows only too well, iPRO is a global brand of isotonic sports drinks. Amusingly on last Wednesday's "Trust Me I'm a Doctor" (BBC1) it was revealed that such beverages are a complete waste of money and a few spoonfuls of evil sugar and a smidgen of salt disolved in water will do you just as much (or as little) good.

But for those who know Derby from afar, who know their Alvastons, Allestrees and Allentons, the district of Pride Park may be a bit of a mystery.

Start with the bulk of the former locomotive works where the Midland Railway created its finest steaming steeds; cross the first leg (arm?) of the Derby Canal (now a rerouted A6) and you come to the footy stadium, Keep going past the Travelodge and across the river and your next excitement is Wyvern Park on the site of Chaddesden carriage sidings.

Of course it's not a park in the normal sense but yet another agglomeration of retail shopping opportunities. How lovely!

Then a reouted A61 (or A52, maps don't agree) takes the line of the other bit of the Derby Canal and you eventual revert to normality and the (brown) Nottingham Road.

Here is a Nottingham Road trolleybus at its outer terminus, namely the end of the Raynesway ring road built in the late 1930s.

And here is the barely recognisable view on StreetView today. The clue is the couple of semis to the left.

The correspondent's challenge, therefore was this: You arrive at Derby Station and wish to spend the night at the Travelodge. Andy writes:-

Back when I worked in Derby there used to be bus 111 Derby City Centre - Wyvern via Pride Park & Ride every 15 minutes, you could pick it up on Pride Parkway behind the college at the back of the railway station. It was primarily a park & ride service but doubled up as the local bus.

And back in November 2013, julie was complaining about it on Fix My Transport.

julie hilton
Dear Sir/Madam
I would like to make a complaint about the delays in the 111 bus service from the wyvern to derby city centre.

Details are there on an official looking web site ...

... where you can see a picture of the bus ...

... and be tempted by a special offer!

Take advantage of the latest 111 Park and Ride offer and take the hassle out of trying to find a parking space in town. From the 1st March you can travel between the Wyvern and the City Centre for just £1 on the 111 Park and Ride service.

It only costs £1 each way for adults and 50p for children. The offer is available between 10.00am and 3.00pm, at off peak times.

But it didn't include parking.

fbb writes "didn't" because the 111 has gone. Early in 2015 the local press revealed the bad news.

Bus service linking Derby centre

with Wyvern & Pride Park to be axed

But a director of Littles, the company which runs the Route 111, said he had offered the council an alternative which would see it saved but not running as often. And a council spokeswoman said the authority was "working with partners with a view to retaining the service".

So it was that in May 2015 Arriva started its D2 and D3 services.

These still ran every 15 minutes but were extended through Pride Park to augment local service. The service to Wyvern became every 30 minutes as D2.

The intervening journeys escaped from Pride Park and served Boulton Lane before turning at the Blue Peter pub.

But, of course, it's not as simple at that.

As we shall see on the morrow.

 Next pride bus ride : Saturday 9th January