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New bus service through Lakes Estate – use it or lose it!
by Lib Dem Team on 9 December, 2016
There is a new bus service to the Lakes Estate – something many local residents have been asking for and the Lib Dem team have pressed for over several years.
The 45 bus runs every two hours along St Anne’s Road North and Silverdale Road. It runs from Heald Green right into Piccadilly Gardens and also goes to Gatley Station, Cheadle village, East Didsbury, Fallowfield, Oxford Road and Oxford Street.
If you board the bus on Silverdale Road, it takes just over an hour to get to Piccadilly Gardens.
You can see the timetable and route map here.
If it’s well used it will remain and may even become more frequent. But if few people use it, it will most likely be cut.
It’s only been running since 30th October. Please spread the word to let people know this new service exists.
12 Comments
The reason why the service is under utilised is that
1) It runs once every 2 hours (what if I miss it? I’d be stuck!) plus un-realistic for commuters. Every 2 hours is a timetable you’d expect from a rural service not one from the ‘prosperous suburbs’.
2) it takes over an hour to get to Manchester (not counting traffic). Therefore no one would ever choose taking the bus over their car.
The fact the service has to run between both Gatley and Cheadle makes the service pointless if all you want to do is get into the city centre quickly and easily -or to East Didsbury where you can connect easier to the rest of the GM bus network. There’s too much going back on yourself to get where you need to go.
If you want people to use busses instead of cars (and therefore the service fully utilised) You need to get people from A to B quickly and efficiently. It’s not rocket science! Wouldn’t it be more straightforward if there were 2 services that run every 30 minutes? a service from Heald Green via Gatley then join the A34 Kingsway to Manchester and another service Heald Green via Cheadle then down Manchester Road past Alexandra Hospital joining A34 Kingsway. These services can then alternate between Wilmslow Road/ Oxford Road or continue down A34 up into Manchester via Upper Brook Street. The journey would cover more bases, more opportunity for connectivity en-route and be quicker for travellers.
We agree – in an ideal world bus services would all work differently. However, this is what we’ve got and it is a “use it or lose it”. The previous service through the Lakes was cut completely because not enough people were using it.
We’d suggest that people wanting to go all the way into Manchester might use the bus to get to Gatley station or East Didsbury.
I agree with Lawrence. Every 2 hours is useless. We need frequent shuttles from Cheadle to East Didsbury
I don’t want local busses running through The Lakes, where i live. I think that many of the people that chose to come and live here may feel similarly.
Well said Lawrence.
Living on Delamere I first noticed this service a few weeks back and every time I have seen one it has been empty.
.
As Lawrence states the frequency is not very conducive to attract customers – also where are the bus stops?
It is amazing how buses & commercial vehicles manage to pass the parked cars and the single lane points – especially on St. Ann’s road by the Industrial Park – a couple of times I have needed to drive on to the pavement to make room when travelling North!
There has not been enough advertising of this new service. I had to find out about it after noticing a bus numbered 45 one day.
We agree Trevor – that’s why we’re telling people about it here.
I would definitely use the bus service to get from Silverdale Rd into Heald Green which is about a mile and too far for me to walk, but where are the stops?
I have only just heard about this bus and I think its brilliant especially when you become elderly, eyesight fading etc,we are cut off up here if you cant drive and loose your licence, I am definitely going to use it, wish I had heard about it sooner
St anne’s Rd has turned into a car park for the cheadle royal office park. When the farm fields and the woods were
built on, more than 13 years ago,
the st anne’s and silverdale rd residents were promised that traffic would not increase and that no access straight into the office park would be allowed. That worked until a few years ago when the office staff decided to park along st anne’s Rd instead of using the ample parking space on the office park site. They even started parking in the Fridays and hotel car park, to save time to and from Kingsway but desisted when they had to pay. Silverdale rd, where I will live, is quite dangerous and has changed its character. The answer is yellow lines on st anne’s Rd at key times . The spirit if the original agreement has been broken