Dear Sirs
I am writing in response to Lorraine Smith’s letter appealing for readers to send us their support for her suggestion to divert some of the Service 7 journeys in Newton Aycliffe via Burn Lane in order to give access to the large stores there.
Mrs Smith’s letter gives the impression that this suggestion has been entirely ruled out, which is not the case. Mrs Smith and I have corresponded on this and have also discussed the matter at length.
The current situation with service 7 is that there is about to be a major investment in the route. Whilst I am unable to release details of this at this stage, this will represent substantial upgrade of the quality of the service and will include details of the route, timetable and bus stops.
The promotional material for this is in the process of production. It legally requires a minimum of 8 weeks notification to the Traffic Commissioner to change a local bus service and planning lead times increase this timescale.
For this reason, it is not possible for us to consider introducing changes to the service that would render all the promotional material currently in production out of date.
I committed to Mrs Smith, as I will to any further users who wish to comment, that we will consider this at an appropriate time, following proper investigation into the potential consequences of such a change, including but not least the effects on users who would find their services halved from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes, by half of the buses taking a different route.
In the meantime, I agreed with Mrs Smith that we would achieve a more positive outcome if we worked together to establish the potential demand for such a change.
Paul De Santis, Arriva.