Britain’s narrowest bus route is ending

Thursday 1st September 2022

I left you at the end of Tuesday’s blog enjoying a wander around Launceston preparing to take a ride on Cornwall’s other about-to-be-withdrawn-from-this-weekend bus route – the three journeys a day (Monday to Friday) route 235 from Launceston south to Callington.

Spoiler alert: I don’t really know if it’s “Britain’s narrowest bus route” but it is certainly ending after its third and last journey of the day tomorrow, that’s for sure.

Route 235 is what I call a deep rural route. The Go Cornwall website explains “this was a trial route and will be withdrawn due to low passenger numbers. Passengers can still use Service 237.”

You can’t get much lower than zero passengers. That was my experience on the 12:18 from Launceston’s Westgate Street on Wednesday last week (other than myself, of course).

And what a journey. It’s all along narrow country roads making passing other vehicles extremely challenging not least when we met a bus on sister route 236 on a short common section near Lewannick.

Suffice to say the professionalism of Go Cornwall’s drivers was severely tested and they both passed with flying colours.

However, the five mile section of route between the hamlets of Bray Shop and Maders is unbelievably narrow for a bus route with virtually no passing places.

I’m amazed the route was signed off as suitable and safe for buses.

It isn’t.

If you think I’m exaggerating, take a look on Goggle maps when the camera car passed through. It’s narrowness just keeps on going, with just a few exceptions, for five miles.

Thank goodness we only met one other vehicle – which was a large estate car towing a horse box. It cost us over five minutes to work out how to pass. We started off by reversing gingerly especially with a car behind us, but as we weren’t going far very fast the horse box driver managed to skilfully reverse (not easy with a trailer) and eventually found a small pull in by a gate to a field just big enough to fit alongside and we managed to squeeze past.

I asked the driver if he had ever got completely stuck. He said he hated driving this section of route and did meet a lorry once which took ages to sort out – in the end the lorry reversed. Without any reversing cameras it’s very tricky to do this with a large vehicle on a winding narrow lane, not to say how unsafe it is, not least on the 16:50 journey from Callington on a dark winter’s afternoon.

The tiny settlements of Linkinhorne, South Hill and Maders can’t really justify a bus service and I’m surprised it was ever considered a serious proposition to send a bus to them. Has a bus route ever served these tiny hamlets before, I wonder?

At least no one will be disappointed at the route’s imminent demise.

And it didn’t end there.

As you can see from the screenshots showing our location, when we got to Callington we did three separate dog legs to serve small residential areas in the north of the town either side of the A388 Launceston Road.

Two of these involved reverse turns in dead ends. I reckon most people who are able to would walk the short distance into the town’s small centre than wait for such an infrequent bus which in our case was 10 minutes down due to the earlier narrow roads issues and generally a very tightly timed route

As quoted earlier, Go Cornwall’s website advises passengers “can still use service 237”. This new two journey a day route will replace part of the narrow section of route 235 as well as enabling a streamlining of route 236 – another route which enjoys embracing narrow lanes. Both routes are certainly worth a trip if you like a hairy rural ride, never sure if the bus will get stuck.

Finally one of the routes Go Cornwall list as under threat of cuts with another review in December is route 26 between St Austell and Bodmin. My journey on the school holiday only 08:35 from St Austell on Wednesday carried 12. Three were local trips in St Austell and four were local trips within Bodmin. So not brilliant; and remember all fare payers are enjoying ticket price reductions at the moment.

This route is an amalgam of a kite flying route Go Cornwall introduced earlier this year in competition with First Kernow’s route 27, except the latter withdrew the 27 from that section leaving the market to the 26. But it seems all is not well.

Cornwall is certainly an area to watch with continuing interesting developments. If you like rural rides, it’s worth visiting while the Government funding lasts.

But as a commentator on Tuesday’s blog observed it would be useful for all those embarking on Bus Service improvement Plans elsewhere as well as interested observers if Cornwall Council could publish some lessons learned so far from the two and a half years worth of significant funding (albeit much being initially pandemic related) as well as the first summer season of fare cuts. It might help to ensure the same mistakes aren’t made elsewhere.

As for the about to be withdrawn route 235, never in a million years would it have tempted motorists out of their cars to travel between Callington and Launceston.

Not even in ‘Catch the Bus Month’.

Roger French

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