Two Derbyshire bus services saved after search for new operator

Derbyshire County council have been struggling to find a new operator for two bus services in Derbyshire after their previous partner signalled their intention to close down their services.

Derbyshire Community Transport ran a number of services across the county for a number of years, yet they recently announced that they are intending to close down at the end of October, leaving many services without an operator.

The operator ran a large number of services for the council, with the two scheduled services, the 147 from Belper to Street Lane, Marehay, via Ripley, and the 148 from Alfreton to Codnor via Pentrich, which were due to be left without an operator.

However the county council have managed to find a new operator, Notts and Derby Buses will now start running the routes from November 1, meaning that there will now be no gap in operation.

However this operator change has meant that the service will run differently. In order to make the service more economically viable the buses will now have a "one driver, one bus" policy implemented.

This means that they will have a short break in the middle of the day when the driver will now stop for a break in the middle of the day which will mean timings for the buses will partially change.

Derbyshire County Councillor Charlotte Cupit, said: “We were very sorry to hear the news that DCT could not carry on trading so we’ve been working hard to look for new operators for the services they ran on our behalf.

"This means that, despite additional costs, we have secured replacements to be able to continue these services that I know are very important to these local communities. Thank you to the County Council’s public transport team for their quick work on this which will also mean there’s no gap in these new services taking over from DCT.”

Derbyshire Community transport was registered in 1966. They operated a number of key services including running a special needs and disabilities transport service, as well as hospital shuttles as with a total of over 105,446 passengers each year throughout all their services.