Thursday 17 May 2012

Return to Skippingdale

From this Monday (21st May) Stagecoach operated Scunthorpe town service 37 will serve Skippingdale Retail Park, which has recently attracted a number of new stores including Matalan last Autumn.

If I remember correctly RoadCar served the retail park with a Scunthorpe Town Service until Tesco relocated in the early noughties.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

About time!

Scunthorpe has seen an huge increase in the number of people going out of town retail parks to do their shopping in recent years at the expense of the Town Centre (Perhaps one of the reasons the network is struggling?).

Skippingdales was last served up to 2002 when the 347 was withdrawn when Tesco relocated. It ran to snowdonia Avenue, and did a 3-point turn in the turning T at the end of Snowdonia Avenue, before picking up again opposite Poundstretcher. Wonder were the new service will turn round?

Anonymous said...

I cant see it doing much business, who going to take the bus from the bottom of the town to the bus station and then try and catch this hourly service?

I heard there big plans afoot for the retail park around Tesco store.

Anonymous said...

Indeed on the site of the garden centre a new retail park is due to be built over the next year or 2.

Tesco is somewhere else that is very 'underbussed'. When it first opened around 2003, the 341 (which followed a simular route to the 31/32 towards Riddings), used to run up to Tesco every 20 minutes each way, and also, the old 346/347 - which were the predecessor to the 37/38 routes, ran there every 30 minutes. The link always seemed well used whenever I saw it - especially from the Westcliff area to Tesco.

Humber Transport said...

Surely when (if) the new retail park opens Stagecoach are going to need to re-route the 31/32 to Tesco? If some are believed the area will become the new town centre.

It's odd that Stagecoach's town services, the (subsidised?) evening and Sunday 31A/32A excepted omit Tesco currently. I can only guess it is to avoid PVR increases from a slightly longer running time

Anonymous said...

The Tesco diversion would add 5 minutes to the 31/32, so would probably increase PVR by 1. The question is will enough 'extra' revenue be generated to cover the cost of that. Then there is the traffic problems down there to consider - Will it make the rest of the route unreliable?

The 90 is now the main bus to Tesco, every hour but only until July.

The 31A/32A have kept to the same route since 2003, and is well used on Sundays for travel to/from the retail park which ironically gets a better service Evenings/Sundays than during the week. Is it SIL or NLC that decide the route here?

Moving back to the subject - Anybody seen how the skippingdale extension is going? Looking at Google maps, the old terminus lay-by still exists on Snowdonia Avenue which would perhaps have been a better place to pick up, rather than blocking the main entry/exit to the retail park.

The new timetable and route map have yet to appear on the Stagecoach website - nor does the change appear to have been on VOSA - was this a last minute decision?

Anonymous said...

I believe Stagecoach are very aware of the plans for Gallagher retail park, but of course it few years away yet.

I believe at certain times of the day 31/32 do not swap over which means there would be enough time to operate via Tesco without any increase PVP.

Trouble started in 2005 which the new shuttle network, when Tesco was served by No10/11 circler but was withdraw in late 2006, thus leaving the 37/38 and 31/32A. fast forward a year and then the 37/38 were gone