Six month lifeline for High Peak Buses

Last month it was announced High Peak uses would be having a major shake up of services across the county including the popular Transpeak journey which will now be subsidised for up to six months to give the route time to recover and improve passenger numbers.

Derbyshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways, Assets and Transport, Councillor Kewal Singh Athwal, said: “Nationally bus-use levels remain down on pre-pandemic levels and Derbyshire is no exception.

"The Transpeak route is an important one, connecting Derby and Buxton and without it several communities would be left with a much-reduced service.

“We’ve had detailed and ongoing discussions with the operator and are pleased to give them the opportunity for passenger numbers to further improve. We want to ensure that bus users in the area can continue to rely on the service and have access to work and school.”

High Peak Buses had announced the service which covers Buxton, Bakewell, Matlock, Matlock Bath, Belper and Derby will see most journeys between Derby and Matlock being withdrawn due to low usage along with revised times being introduced between Matlock and Buxton.

Connections can be made at Matlock with rail services through to /from Derby or service 6 operated by Trent Buses.

But thanks to the subsidy the route has been given a six month reprieve.

Councillor Kewal Singh Athwa added: “I want to take this opportunity to encourage residents across Derbyshire to get back to using buses across the county. Our local operators have been working hard to keep buses clean and safe throughout the pandemic and are keen to encourage passengers both old and new to make more use of the counties’ bus services.”

Other changes to High Peak Bus services came into force on Sunday July, 10.

This means 61 service which goes from Buxton through New Mills and on to Glossop will be retimed, an additional loop has been added to the 185/186 in Harpur Hill and there are no buses running to Manchester Airport on the 199 after 7.30pm.

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