Back To Sheffield
Any casual visitor to Sheffield cannot fail to notice the confusion that prevails on the buses. There may be two main operators, but there is a profusion of liveries and confusion of routes and route numbers.
Back in 2015 we were promised the Sheffield Bus Partnership.
It was nothing more than a well hidden means of reducing services. One senior manager opined, in fbb's hearing, that he now had the problem of "getting rid of 50 drivers"!
Then came the pointless Buses for Sheffield which (just like the Partnership) was vaunted as bringing buses together to make one integrated service.
They didn't and it still isn't.
Mayor Dan Jarvis (whatever happened to him?) was going to revolutionise the buses in South Yorkshire, So he called in the great, the good and the unknown to come up with a plan.
Whatever happened to that?
Then there was Louise Haigh and we now know what happened to her!
And on and on and on we go with a whole range of campaign groups and a total lack of response from the operators.
"Franchising is the answer!" fbb is not at all sure that the people of Manchester are rejoicing in their scheme as nothing much has happened apart from a bit of timetable tinkering and lots of yellow buses.
Here are a few of the press letters and stunts seen in Sheffield in recent times.
Public Control
Greenwashing
Public Dissatisfaction
A Plenitude of Petitions to the PTE ...
... which is obviously much better now it is called a Mayoral Combined Authority!
And Stating the Obvious
Throughout the nearly ten years since the Sheffield Bus Partnership For Service Reductions, there has been a stream of cut backs and fares increases.
There is little sign that the decline is being reversed post covid and post £2 fare cap ...
Or is there?
September is timetable and route changes month coming soon after all bus services have been renumbered in Doncaster and the Trams have been taken wholly into "Public Ownership".
It hasn't made any difference.
So we enter the September Changes with an outburst of total non partnership and THREE consultations.
First, First
Then Stagecoach
And Then The PTE
And Then The PTE
Why is it considered appropriate to have three separate "consultations" and what difference will they make to the future of bus services in Sheffield?
But in a future blog fbb will look more closely at one area of "consultation" involving all three "partners'; he will try to understand what is the point of it all.
Please note:-
fbb is suffering from Sheffield-visit-lag, election-lag, fellowship-meeting-lag, old-age-lag and lag-lag, Assuming this can be mitigated by flagons of tea and gash cake left over from the meetings, there will be more on this topic tomorrow.
1800 Years Of Church History ...
... in about 3 pages of an A5 leaflet! This was the quiz section of our July fellowship leaflet. The pages can be enlarged.
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
No prizes, just the smug knowledge that you can answer them all! It's very easy!
Next Consultation blog : Tuesday 9 July
Perhaps you could have done the analysis before calling it a con job. Selfishly for me, my area gets its First route back, albeit an 82 instead of an 83 for the first time since they unceremoniously ditched it two years ago, leaving us the sensationally useless hourly route 6 to serve Greystones and High Storrs. The other thing is a return to other historic services that the Partnership ditched so it’s nice to see the likes of the 47 and 48 back. I’m cautiously pleased with the changes. But as usual, let’s just moan.
ReplyDeleteThose travelling to/from Dore and Millhouses might not agree, they will find that in one direction the bus randomly takes longer with a random wander around the houses
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