Operators based in North East Wales

[DLG817]

RE: Operators based in North East Wales
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N E Wales News 13th January 2020

Today was the first day of a number of services in this part of the world.

Arriva - 3 Chester to Broughton Shops via Broughton Park.
This is Arriva's substitute for their short lived 13 Chester to Mold via Handbridge, Sandy Lane Saltney, Penyffordd and Nant Mawr Road Buckley. The new service's main stop in Chester is at Foregate Street and it does not visit the Bus Interchange. It then goes to Broughton Park via High Street Saltney and then to Broughton Shops. There is a short waiting time at Broughton before it proceeds to run around the former route in Broughton village before heading back to Broughton Park and Chester. It is a 30 minute service and it runs from about 0530 until 1830. The PVR is 2 - a reduction of one from the former 13 service. Today Solo 675 <photo 675> and Cadet 2503 were utilised.
The areas no longer served by Arriva are presumably being picked up by Stagecoach as far as Handbridge and Sandy Lane Saltney is concerned and the services below are picking up the other areas within North Wales.

M and H Coaches - 29 Mold to Wrexham
Until April of 2019 Townlynx operated a '28' service which ran from Wrexham to Mold, Flint and Holywell that also visited Buckley, Penyffordd and Wrexham Maelor Hospital. Whilst the service was partially subsided apparently Townlynx decided to withdraw the service as being uneconomical to run. This created a vacuum especially for those in Buckley that needed to visit the Wrexham hospital and also those in Penyffordd wishing to travel to Wrexham. M and H Coaches were successful in obtaining the contract for the service which is now given the route number 29. The service, of course did not operate for some 9 months. There are now six journeys each way including a couple of school runs and the service runs Monday to Saturday. (Timetable at <LINK>). Whilst M & H have purchased a Versa (YJ13HJO) from the former D Jones and Son fleet it was not available to run on the first day due as the engineer from 'Ticketer' had not been able to visit north Wales to install the new ticket machine. However another former D Jones and Son vehicle was used - Solo BU53DJS. The second journey of the day was sampled and patronage was encouraging - most of whom were apparently regulars on the former Townlynx service. <Photo BU53DJS>.

LT8 - Caergwrle to Broughton Park via Penyffordd and Higher Kinnerton.
This new service is being operated by R Williams Services Limited and today they were using a Mercedes Sprinter owned by Flintshire County Council which carries a full wrapped 'Council' livery. <PHOTO FP18FFN>. This new service has replaced former CT services operated by R Williams together with the extension to the former Buckley town service operated by Hutchinson which was LT5 and LT6. The Buckley Town service still operates but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday with only three journeys into Buckley and two from the town.
The second LT8 journey was sampled today on the first day and I was the only passenger for the whole run. Another journey was observed and the patronage was also very poor.

Demand Responsive Transport - by Flintshire County Council
Today is apparently the official first day of operation of this new provision. This is not yet widely advertised or made known (not even appearing on their website) and therefore its initial use will clearly be quite limited. To use the service potential passengers are required to register with the Council and pay an annual fee of £10. Each journey will cost £1.70 (concessionary passes are usable). To begin with the service will only be available in a limited area in the southern portion of the County. One of the Council's minibuses will be used for this service and the initial operator of the service is Hutchinson of Buckley. The service will initially only operate on limited days. However there are plans to expand the provision in the future.