Nottingham City Transport announced to staff today that the Pathfinder bus services to Newark and Southwell were to transfer to NCT’s southern depot at Trent Bridge and that the Newark depot will be closed.
NCT have been facing a real challenge with the Pathfinder services, whilst they are a valuable corridor for the NCT network, they have not been commercially viable for some time. The transfer of these services to one of the larger existing depots will mean that the routes are preserved and in fact services and reliability will be improved for passengers.
NCT are aiming to improve or maintain the same level of timetable for service 90 The Fosseway Flyer from Nottingham to Newark and service 100 Nottingham to Southwell.
Service 101 linking Southwell to Newark will be terminated at this time, as this route is already served by the more frequent Stagecoach service.
As part of the transfer of Pathfinder services from our Newark Garage to Trent Bridge Garage, NCT has given notice to Nottinghamshire County Council to cease operating the 54, following the end of service on Friday 29 June 2007.
This service is subsidised by the County Council who are currently investigating options to replace the service. Once final details are available, NCT will liaise with the County Council to advertise any replacement service to ensure a smooth transition for passengers.
The transfer of these routes to Trent Bridge should improve reliability and service delivery, which has suffered over the past few weeks as illness hit the depot which only employs 26 drivers in total causing some services to be cancelled due to lack of driver availability.
All staff at the Newark depot will be given the opportunity to transfer to Trent Bridge at higher rates of pay, NCT are hoping that everyone will take up this opportunity and will be holding further talks with staff regarding this proposal.
NCT Newark drivers elected to take £1 an hour pay cut in January 2006 as a generous concession to keep the Newark depot open, whilst this improved the commercial viability of the depot, this has not been sufficient to make these services viable and the overhead of the bus depot spread across only 9 buses is just too great. This, plus the problems in maintaining a reliable service with such a small workforce has finally prompted the NCT to make this decision.
Mark Fowles Managing Director for NCT stated “It is with regret that we have finally made this decision, especially after the generous move from our staff to take a pay cut to keep Newark depot open however, we believe if Pathfinder services are to continue operating in the future this is the only way. I would like to thank our loyal staff and passengers for their continued support for Pathfinder routes, we will endeavour to re-build and improve this network, we hope that all our staff feel able to move with the service to Trent Bridge in the summer”.
The transfer of Pathfinder services is planned to take place on 1st July 2007, a new timetable will be issued for this date shortly.
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