I am grateful to Simon Raistrick for sharing with us the response he has recently had from Stagecoach regarding the 81 serving both sides of the valley.
“Good evening John,
Unfortunately I bring bad news.
I have had a telephone call from a Mr Michael Sanderson at Stagecoach in response to my email of last week. He informed me that we had raised some interesting points and he accepts more people live on our side of the river but the sad fact remains we do not use the bus as much as those fewer people on the other side of the valley.
I raised the possibility of fewer buses but still both sides of the river but he was resolute, they have taken the view that if they can’t make the route viable with the number of buses that we have been used to then it will not by running a reduced service.
He informed me that the cost of the route (not sure if that’s 81A&81B) is £700.00 per day which is a lot to make up I suppose.
Disappointed but not surprised.
Simon Raistirck”
I would like to thank Simon for his efforts on our beha;f.
The numbers surrounding the cost of this service are difficult to get your head around. Firstly, it is said that the subsidy paid by LCC is £170,000, and that the evening and weekend elements of this is £83,000.
Therefore if Stagecoach can run the revised schedule at a profit it must mean that cancelling the 81A, and one bus every two hours on the 80 route, saves £87,000.
Taking the blind assumption that this amount is spread equally between both routes (the 80 may cost more because it’s longer) then the 81A is costing £43,500.
This is over 52, 6 day weeks, less 8 bank holidays. That means our service costs in the order of £143 per day, over and above the fares taken.