Brigg Town Service Changes

From Tuesday 1st October, the Brigg Town Service is being amended; it is operated by Hornsby Travel for North Lincolnshire Council and was last amended in June 2006 according to the date on Hornsby's current timetable. The service, comprised of 3 routes, operates on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with differing levels of service on each day.

The first route is the 91 which has two variations. Almost all journeys currently operate from Cary Lane in Brigg Town Centre via St Helens Road and Churchill Avenue before some journeys operate via the neighbouring village of Wrawby and return to Cary Lane via their outwards route; other journeys operate from Churchill Avenue via Woodbine Avenue back to Cary Lane. Three journeys operate on a Tuesday, four on a Saturday and five on a Thursday.

In the new timetable:

• The current 0915 from Cary Lane to Wrawby and return becomes an 0913 from Wrawby to Brigg
• There is a new 0945 from Cary Lane to the Churchill Avenue/St Helens Road area and return
• The current 1025 Thursday and Saturday only journey from Cary Lane to Chuchill Avenue and Woodbine Avenue becomes a Thursday and Saturday only 1050 serving the Churchill Avenue/St Helens Road area only
• The 1145 from Cary Lane to Wrawby and return moves to 1130 and returns from Wrawby directly into Brigg, not serving Churchill Avenue
• The current 1245 from Cary Lane to Chuchill Avenue and Woodbine Avenue becomes a 1240 serving the Churchill Avenue/St Helens Road area only
• Similarly the Thursday only 1400 from Cary Lane moves to 1340 with the same route alterations.

Nice and simple - not. Surely the timetable could be a bit more simplified and easier to understand than this? One idea I have wondered about in the past is whether the 68 Villager service could provide a regular weekday service to the St Helens Road and Churchill Avenue areas?

The second route is the 92 which operates from Cary Lane to Polar Drive in Northern Brigg via Redcombe Lane, Grammar School Road and Spring Bank, with two Tuesday journeys, three on Saturdays and six on Thursdays. The new timetable adds an extra journey on Tuesdays and Saturdays, a welcome improvement, while retaining six on Thursdays. Times are revised by up to 20 minutes.

The final Brigg Town Service route is the 93, between Cary Lane and Brigg Garden Centre, which currently has two journeys on a Tuesday, four on a Thursday and three on a Saturday. However from next week the route is substantially revised. It now becomes a Cary Lane-Garden Centre-Howsham-Cadney-Cary Lane circular service with a 1000 departure from Cary Lane serving Brigg Garden Centre before Howsham and Cadney and an 1150 return serving Cadney and Howsham before Brigg Garden Centre. These journeys will operate Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This change reintroduces a bus service for the villages of Howsham and Cadney while still maintaining a basic link for Brigg residents to visit Brigg Garden Centre.

Overall it seems the entire Brigg Town Service timetable has been rewritten to incorporate Howsham and Cadney. Reintroducing bus services to these villages is a positive step forward, but it's a shame to see such irregular pattern timetables remain on the 91 and 92, and with three different timetables for the three days of the week the service operates. The Brigg Town Service is probably never going to see significantly increased usage, but irregular pattern timetables aren't going to help increase usage, even a little bit.

(The new timetable was taken from Traveline East Midlands. Apologies if there are any errors - with multiple 'codes' the timetable isn't the easiest to read)