Market Harborough's buses are under threat

Last month I reported that the 58 bus from Market Harborough to Lutterworth was to be withdrawn.

The good news is that the county council has stepped in and will support the service for another year, possibly with a different bus company running it.

But it may be best not to get too hopeful. Here is part of the announcement of the move on the county council website:

The replacement service will run until June 2019 as all existing subsidised bus services across the county have been extended to the date. This allow for the development and adoption of a new passenger transport policy. 

Cllr Pain added: “We are finding that we having to cover the costs of supporting commercial bus services more and more which is why it is important we have a new policy in place to help mitigate the impact.”

Meanwhile, people are collecting signatures to save the 33 bus, which is a Market Harborough town service, and also the 44, which runs from Fleckney via Harborough to Foxton. Tur Langton parish council is also worried about the future of this service.

And the 67 service from Haborough to Corby and Gretton has already gone - a victim of the extraordinary financial crisis at Conservative-run Northamptonshire County Council. There is currently talk of a vestigial service being financed by Corby council.

Meanwhile, national government talks of cutting carbon output and combating loneliness.

Market Harborough to Melton Mowbray by bus

My most recent Six of the Best included an article by John Disney that says our rural bus services are in meltdown.

Judging from Market Harborough he is right. In the last couple of years we have lost a bus that served Northamptonshire villages on the way to Clipton and our service to Wilbarston, Corby and Gretton. Even the mighty 44 has been reduced in frequency.

Given that background, I have long been intrigued by the 303, which claims to run from Rothwell via Market Harborough to Melton Mowbray on the first Tuesday of every month.

Finding myself at a loose end last Tuesday - the first Tuesday in August - I had a mind to catch it.

So unlikely did the service sound that I rang Hamiltons & Buckbys Coaches the day before to make sure it was running.

They assured me it was. Where it stopped in Harborough was a slight mystery, but my mother said she had caught a bus to Melton years ago and her memory of where she had got on it coincided with my theory.

So I presented myself at the bus stop on Northampton Road shortly before 9.30. By the time the bus was due I had been joined by half a dozen old ladies and when it arrived it proved to be the mighty beast you see in the photo above.

We followed the B road through High Leicestershire from Market Harborough to Melton, taking in little-visited settlements like Three Gates and New Inn. It would have been an education to those who tell me the Midlands are flat and uninteresting - as would my ultimate destination Burrough Hill.

The 303 appears to be a purely commercial venture to take the active pensioners of Rothwell to Melton Mowbray market. I wish it well.

The battle to save the Market Harborough to Gretton 67 bus

Conservatives are generally in favour of austerity until it affects their own ward or constituency.

Still, I am pleased to see that Conservative councillors are campaigning to save the Market Harborough to Gretton 67 bus.

According to the Northamptonshire Telegraph:

Conservative councillors Rob McKellar, Kevin Watt and Bridget Watts, who represent Weldon, Gretton and Priors Hall on Corby Council, are campaigning to save the service which Centrebus has announced will cease in July after its county council subsidy was withdrawn. 

They have launched a Facebook page calling for the service to be saved and are working with MP for Corby and East Northants Tom Pursglove, Gretton Parish Council and Northamptonshire County Council to try and broker a deal. 

Cllr McKellar said: “The Number 67 bus is a lifeline to many residents in Corby’s surrounding villages. 

“It doesn’t just transport local people between Gretton and Market Harborough, but it also connects our villages to Asda and to the Corby Business Academy, as well as providing a link between Priors Hall, Gretton and Rockingham. 

“We will fight hard to save the service and we will do everything in our power support to those affected by its cancellation.”

The photo above shows a bus at Gretton, but it is not the 67. It was taken during what turned out to be the final Welland Valley Beer Festival.

Market Harborough to Corby bus route under threat

The Fox Inn, Wilbarston

The 67 bus route, which runs from Market Harborough to Gretton via Corby and Rockingham, is to be withdrawn this summer after the decision by Northamptonshire County Council (NCC) to remove its subsidy.

Andrew Royle, the chairman of Gretton parish council, told the Harborough Mail:

“NCC were surprised by Centrebus’s decision to withdraw the whole of service 67 after July 23 as their understanding had been that the single vehicle operation on Monday to Friday was commercially viable, and Centrebus had given them no indication otherwise when they informed them of the likely withdrawal of their support for the service before Christmas.”

Campaigns against the decision have been set up in both Gretton and Wilbarston.

I did use this bus occasionally to get out into the countryside when there was a Saturday service, but that was withdrawn some years ago.

I wish the campaigners well in their attempts to save this route, but it is the massive cuts in central government funding for councils that are at the root of this.

Gretton railway station

When I got off the bus at the Talbot Inn the queue for the festival bar in its garden was a long one, so I slipped away to find Gretton railway station.

Gretton is a large village with three shops, a post office stores and even a little coffee shop. For the traditionalists, there are stocks and a whipping post on the village green.

The station used to stand on a viaduct at the edge of the village. I don't know when it closed, but it is on the line north of Corby which is still open to freight and has always seen plenty of diverted passenger trains. There are even some passenger trains from St Pancras to Oakham and Melton Mowbray via Corby that pass through now.

The stone staircases to the station on either side of the viaduct are still there complete with their wooden handrails, and there is a tunnel just below track level that meant people could change platform without having to go down to street level. The station building, now a private house, is still there too.

And so back to the Talbot...

Welland Valley Beer Festival

I have spent the day enjoying the Welland Valley Beer Festival - nine pubs, stretching from Great Bowden on the edge of Market Harborough to Lyddington in Rutland, served by a relay of vintage buses. How can you not enjoy that? The buses also call at Market Harborough station, so it is easy to reach it from further afield.

I visited the Talbot Inn at Gretton, the Wheel & Compass at Weston by Welland and the Queen's Head at Sutton Bassett. In between I found some things to photograph and even had a walk between those last two villages, though that is the shortest between participating pubs apart from the two in Lyddington,which really would have been cheating.

As to the beer, I rather liked Biggus Dickus from Nobby's Brewery at Guilsborough - and not just for the name. And I enjoyed listening to The Others at the Queen's Head.