Trent Barton and Nottingham City Council (NCC) have anounced that a new SkyLink service will be introduced from the 25th of March, operated commercially by Trent Barton (TB). On their Facebook page (Trent Barton Live) they said
"Countdown to take-off ... The new skylink Nottingham arrives on March 25th. 55 mins from city to check-in, with faster buses into Nottingham for Long Eaton, Sawley, Castle Donington, Sutton Bonnington and Kegworth. 10 trips from £18." To start with, this seems great. However, I then read NCC's news page which tells a slightly different story, albeit with a positive note. It speaks of the fact that TB has registered the service without consultation by them, and that under the Transport Act 1985 the current SkyLink bus service must cease running, because councils are not allowed to pay bus operators to run services that are commercially viable. This means Trent Barton have effectively forced the service away from Nottingham City Transport (NCT).
The route is also changing completely, now taking the INDIGO route instead. This reduces Clifton, Wilford and NTU's bus options and removes their night bus and link to the airport, whilst not creating any new links because the INDIGO route to be followed already has an hourly service to EMA. I believe that this is a great shame, but Trent Barton has made a decision and so I will be investigating it when service commences, in late March.
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| Nottingham City Transport Scania Omnicity YN04 GHZ stands at the route's Nottingham terminus on Friar Lane. |
Links:
Nottingham City Council news report
Nottingham City Transport news report
Trent Barton news report
Please leave your views on the matter using the comments form below.
Aren't you sexing this story up a bit? I can't see anything in the NCC article that suggests there was 'no consultation'. You say that there was the 'fact' (?!) that tb registered the service without consultation. I thought this was impossible due to SQPS slot bookings. Sounds to me like a new service has been registered and EMA & NCC save a lot of money on subsidy and both breathe a sign of relief. Wouldn't surprise me if one of the funding parties approached tb with the idea to do it in the first place.
ReplyDeleteA bus company can book slots and as long as slots are available NCC has no right to refuse service applicatons, assuming all other criteria are met. Whilst NCC has put a positive spin on this by saying they will reallocate the funding, IMO it just provides a worse deal for passengers because the route TB will follow just duplicates the INDIGO, and so most of the profit will come from Long Eaton/Beeston-Nottingham, not out to the airport. Comments on Facebook have also been fairly negative about the change.
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