Yeomans Canyon Travel / Lugg Valley Primrose Travel

[B61 ANDREW]

how many extra buses will they need for the new services in Hereford

A post on the MidlandRed.net forum suggests "between 12 and 19" Solo's.  8)

[D10]

Just seen a burnt-out Lugg Valley coach being towed along the A449 in Kidderminster, any idea as to the identity of the coach?

[B61 ANDREW]

YT10WLL according to a post on the Midland Red net forum. Thankfully no injuries reported as the coach was returning to depot.

[Reece]

Yeomans Canyon Travel have invested in a batch of 4 brand new Optare Solo SR's for Hereford operations and they should enter service over the next few weeks once they have received Yeomans branding and been fitted with ticket machines. They are as follows...

89: YJ17CVA
90: YJ17CVB
91: YJ17CVC
92: YJ17CVD

I have also been informed they are due a new batch of National Express coaches that are due for delivery in September apparently I presume they will be Levante's.

[mikestone]

A surprising purchase is Yarranton's YN08DDU.

[Adam 404]

Rather interesting to find that Yeomans is now using the Swift Pay as you Go Card though not serving the TfWM area

Yeomans Travel - Swift Card
The cashless way to travel

From Monday 2nd November we will be rolling out a new way to pay on board our buses.

Using Swift will let you top up online, on the bus and soon you will be able to use Payzone facility.

Cards are free and can be registered online on the Swift website where you can top up or select an auto top up when the card balance goes below a selected limit.

The Swift card can hold a maximum of £50 at any one time and can be used to buy multiple tickets on one journey so if you have 2 people travelling, one card is all you need.  Your balance is shown at the bottom of your bus ticket too so you will always know how much you have left!

You can order your card online direct from Swift via their website: https://www.wmnetwork.co.uk/swift and then select Swift for you and then pay as you go.

This is the only part of the scheme we are operating at the moment.

You can set up an account online which will help safeguard your card or you can contact us at Yeomans Travel and we can either send you a blank card out or you can call in and collect one if this is easier, plus you can always top it up here as well!

This will mean you no longer have to hunt around for change in the mornings or the night before and there is no expiry date, so if you are not a regular user the money stays on your Swift card and can be used as and when required.

For more information on this scheme, please see either the Swift website or contact Yeomans Travel on 01432 356201.

http://www.yeomanscoachholidays.com/Bus-Timetables

[Pat]

Rather interesting to find that Yeomans is now using the Swift Pay as you Go Card though not serving the TfWM area



http://www.yeomanscoachholidays.com/Bus-Timetables

Surprised at that, if I'm honest.  Perhaps it's their alternative to contactless?

[ellspurs]

https://www.wmnetwork.co.uk/swift/swift-for-you/outside-the-west-midlands/

The WMNetwork site does have a page dedicated to operators accepting it outside the West Midlands (to be fair all the listed operators operate in the West Midlands).

Yeomans aren't listed on there at the moment. They also still list Arriva for Cannock/Stafford, not sure if Arriva's Coventry services accept it.

That said, I wonder if there are other operators that have the same sorts of ticket machines that may choose to use it.

[Damo]

From the Yeomans website: http://www.yeomanscoachholidays.com/Bus-Timetables

Yeomans Travel have made the difficult decision to withdraw most of their commercial bus services in the City of Hereford, the last day being New Year's Eve, Friday 31st December 2021.

Yeomans Travel has been family owned for over a century and currently provides bus and school services, contracts, private hire and holiday tours. In September 2015 we stepped in and kept the bus services running when First closed their Hereford depot citing that it was not viable to operate with such low passenger numbers.

Most of the Hereford city bus services are run on a commercial basis without any Council subsidy. The Government had given financial support to all bus companies during the Covid crisis to keep some services operating but this finished at the end of September. Since then we have continued to operate these services without support but this is not sustainable.

In recent years, and especially since the start of the Covid pandemic, the number of passengers carried has been in slow decline as more people have bought cars and traffic congestion in the city has got steadily worse. The rise of out-of-town shopping and employment centres has also reduced demand for travel into the city centre. There have been no discussions with local operators about bus priority or traffic issues until recently when the Government unveiled a package to local councils to assist bus travel.

We are now carrying only 50% of the numbers of bus passengers that we were carrying in 2019 and this is unfortunately typical of bus services across the whole of England and like many others are also having to absorb the large increase in fuel costs.

Whilst Yeomans Travel is aware that Herefordshire Council is working on a new Bus Strategy that will involve support for bus services across the County, we are having to act now to protect the future of the Company. We are upset that the Council have not even mentioned the reason we are stopping these services in their press release. When we informed them, with the reasons behind it, they offered no assistance or asked what they could do to help other than to ask us to carry on until April. If it is not financially viable, why would we continue until then? There was not even a thank you for stepping in with six weeks' notice and solving the problems 6 years ago when First did the same thing only on a bigger scale.

Therefore the following services will be affected from this date:

City services 71 (Credenhill), 72 (Bobblestock), 74S (Bishops School), 77A (College Green and Bobblestock circular), 79A/88 (Putson and Redhill) will be withdrawn.

Service 74 to Newton Farm will continue to operate but the route via Hunderton will be withdrawn. Service 78/78X to Rotherwas/Skylon Park will also continue to run.

We had given Herefordshire Council the statutory notice required before withdrawing these bus services and they have already published a tender to operate emergency timetables on these routes, which they also failed to mention. These will now be financially supported, if we had been offered this we would have continued operating these services which would have meant no disruption to services at all and saved a lot of time and effort all round.

There are no job losses created by these changes and we will still be operating our subsidised services throughout Herefordshire.

We would like to thank our staff for their hard work and passengers for their custom and support over the years but we cannot continue to operate something that is not commercially viable.

[ellspurs]

Unless First/Stagecoach come back to the area, the only other company that run local services in Hereford is Sargeants, and they mainly do school routes and the A/B circulars. The TrawsCymru T14 is ran by Stagecoach.

I'm not including Lugg Valley as I would guess they wouldn't be looking at these routes if Yeomans weren't doing them.

https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/public-transport-1/bus-travel/2

Hereford Council's response to it

[Rich-82]

Unless First/Stagecoach come back to the area, the only other company that run local services in Hereford is Sargeants, and they mainly do school routes and the A/B circulars. The TrawsCymru T14 is ran by Stagecoach.

I'm not including Lugg Valley as I would guess they wouldn't be looking at these routes if Yeomans weren't doing them.

https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/public-transport-1/bus-travel/2

Hereford Council's response to it

Stagecoach do operate into Hereford with the T14 and X3 operated by Stagecoach South Wales and Stagecoach West From Gloucester Via Ross-on-Wye.

First Bus only operate an Wednesday service from Ledbury

The biggest problem in Hereford is there is very little operators that do Stage carriage work.

Its only Yeomans/Lugg Valley, Nick Maddy Coaches, Sargeant`s & DRM of Bromyard left in Herefordshire that do service work

[B61 ANDREW]

Quack77 have Yeomans/Lugg Valley acquiring 5 Solo's from Scarlet Band Motors at the start of the year. Bustimes suggest that two are in service with Lugg Valley. Can anyone tell me if any of the others are in use please. Many thanks.