Buses scrapped in final route changes

Changes to bus services across the district will come into force within weeks after final details including removal of routes was confirmed.

Stagecoach buses announced last month that a number of changes would be made from June 6 including loss of the X15 and X16 services between Coventry and Leamington.

Steve Burd, managing director of Stagecoach, said while some changes mean loss of coverage, others will bring an improvement- but that all are necessary to address low usage, change in council contracts and traffic congestion.

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He said: “We need to tackle traffic congestion which has major effects on our services and running times. We also need to look at poorly used services and standardising routes to address those.

“Lastly, the changes are to address a review of services being made by Warwickshire County Council and tenders.”

But council officers said decisions by commercial operators would now see a “negative impact” on some services.

Despite being in talks with to mitigate impacts, it must now work with changes to help manage a £500,000 reduction in its transport spend.

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A council spokesperson said: “In one or two cases, services that received unsustainably low patronage and that couldn’t therefore be operated successfully on a commercial basis were removed.

“However, we’ve done what we can to mitigate any impact as far as we can.”

Changes in Warwick were described as “minimal” or “improved”, including the X17 route which will serve Chase Meadow and link Coventry, Leamington and Kenilworth.

But the new timetable means removal of the X15 and x16 services - with these routes covered by other buses.

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And the X18 route has been extended between Coventry, Leamington, Warwick, Barford and Wellesbourne - with changes to the 68 in Leamington to “improve reliability”.

Visit the council’s website for the full new timetable changes or have your say on any impact via mailto:[email protected]