Beeston transport connections direct and the disappearing bus routes

Earlier versions of the map below first appeared on my old parkviews blog in 2013 and it has always had its own page (see roundel in right-hand column).

More information about all the the places of interest I have marked on the map can easily be found on the web. If you know of any I have missed please tell me and I will add them. It has been designed so that it can be printed A4 landscape in mono or colour. To see a larger version simply click on the map.

It is the only map of its kind insomuch as it shows all bus services running to and from Beeston (there is one new County Council subsidised daytime service missing, which I will add later).

Promoting Beeston is a two-way street. It is a hub as well as a destination. From Beeston you can reach all manner of places and if you add Beeston railway station to the mix, then the list expands ten-fold. When I have the time I will add all the places served by train direct from Beeston.

Promoting Beeston is not helped when local bus services disappear from bus maps. This is the Beeston section of Nottingham City Transport's latest Journey Planner dated February 2015.

NCT presently operate the L10 and L11 'Local Link' services from Nottingham City Council…

…and here is an L10 climbing out of Beeston along Wollaton Road towards Derby Road on the north side of the town centre. Since moving to Beeston this has become a bus I use regularly to take me to Nottingham city centre. It runs every hour Monday–Saturday, except evenings.

Now look at the NCT map section above and notice that it shows no L10 or L11 (which runs along Wollaton Road and Dennis Avenue) even though the services are operated by NCT. The map has a information panel on the back headed 'What's New' which explains why all the NCT Local Link services have disappeared from the map. It reads:

Link Bus services are no longer shown on this map (because) of ticketing changes which prevent the use of any NCT tickets or Easyrider passes being used'.

Now the crazy thing is that Nottingham City Council own NCT and subsidise the operation of Local Link bus routes. In fact they actually have a second fleet of buses operated by Nottingham Community Transport which now operate many of the Local Link routes.

Confused? 

This problem has been with us since bus de-regulation by the Thatcher government in the id-1980s and the last Labour government (1997–2010) did nothing to change the situation. They just continued doing what Thatcher started.

So there you have it — Beeston bus routes which do not appear on a bus map published by the company which operates the services, which are subsidised by the council which own the bus company operating the services.

It's a crazy situation which has needed attention for years. I intend to use the coming general election as an opportunity to ask all the prospective candidates to explain why they support this state of affairs or to say what they intend to do about it if they become the next Member of Parliament for Broxtowe.