Four out of 14 Cheshire bus routes to be saved

It appears that just four of the 14 Cheshire bus routes – under threat by the closure of Arriva’s Macclesfield and Winsford depots – will been saved.

D&G Bus says it has registered replacement services to cover the 31, 37, 84 and 38 routes – but not the six critical Macclesfield routes, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10

The D&G buses will start running from April 23rd.

The new 38 timetable, between Macclesfield, Congleton, Sandbach and Crewe shows buses running every hour between 5.45am and 7.35pm, Monday to Saturday.

The 31 service, running between Crewe and Northwich, via Winsford, will run every hour Monday to Saturday, with the first bus leaving Crewe at 5.50am on weekdays, 6.50am on Saturdays, with the last full service leaving the town at 6.08pm.

The 37 service between Crewe and Northwich via Sandbach, Middlewich and Winsford will run every hour Monday to Saturday, from 5.55am, with the last full service leaving Crewe at 5.10pm.

The timetable for the 84 route from Crewe to Chester via Nantwich hasn’t yet been published.

David Brookes, Commercial Director at D&G Bus said: “Local people will be worried about the future of bus travel in the area following this announcement. We’d like to reassure them that we intend to step in and cover as much of the Arriva network as we can.

“There are some services we haven’t registered but we will be speaking to local council officers to see what else we can do to help. We can’t guarantee we can cover all the Arriva routes but we’ll make every effort to keep local buses moving in the area.”

The following routes remain under threat:

3 Macclesfield – Weston

4 Macclesfield – Upton Priory

5 and 6 Macclesfield – Broken Cross

9 Macclesfield – Moss Rose

10 Macclesfield – Bollington

6 Leighton Hospital – Shavington

7 Winsford Local Circular

1 Northwich Circular via Rudheath and Weaverham

4 Barnton to Leftwich and Kingsmead via Northwich