Crewe’s new bus station is open

Tuesday 14th May 2024

Crewe’s newly built bus station opened for business last Tuesday.

It’s a huge improvement on what went before…

…including a former Crosville bus garage on the site…

It’s been built in four stages over the last couple of years…

… and together with a new 389 space multi- storey car park next door, completes phase one of the town’s Royal Arcade redevelopment.

But there’s a problem with phase two.

This comprised commercial elements of the scheme – a mixed-use development with retail units as well as a strong leisure focus, anchored by a new cinema together with a ten-pin bowling alley, a gym, restaurants, cafés and bars along with public realm enhancements.

The plans were all set out on explanatory boards displayed at the old bus station in 2020 before it was demolished.

The Council had purchased the Royal Arcade site in 2016 and when the development agreement for both phases one and two was finalised in October 2020 between Cheshire East Council and Peveril Securities Ltd it was said to be a viable scheme.

However sustained post Covid double-digit construction cost inflation along with other economic influences, not least the Government’s decision to scrap HS2 north of Birmingham and its consequential impact on Crewe’s economic prospects as well as consumer confidence hit by the cost-of-living crisis and a decline in town centre investment values by 20-25% have all contributed to undermine that viability.

A number of options were considered at a meeting of the Council’s Economic and Growth Committee last November including plans for what are quaintly called temporary “meanwhile uses” (ie “while” the longer term viability is reconsidered) to attract town centre footfall such as “a children’s play area, temporary go-karting track, trampoline park, pop-up cinema or space for traders to sell food and drink”.

You can get an idea of the scale of the area involved from theses photographs which also show the new bus station and multi-storey car park.

Thank goodness the bus station was in phase one before the worst of inflationary construction costs hit home and I’m sure bus passengers in Crewe will be delighted with the transformative bus station facilities they are now enjoying.

The new bus station includes a fully enclosed passenger waiting area with 10 bus bays although bays 6 and 10 are currently not in use as eight bays are sufficient for current service levels.

Unlike some recently constructed cramped bus stations (eg Exeter and Northampton always comes to mind), Crewe’s new offering has bags of bus manoeuvring space together with a parking area for buses on extended layover.

Although on my visit last Friday, it started to fill up with drivers arriving in cars to take up duty.

The passenger concourse is nice and bright thanks to all the glass and each bay has a double row of seats, a perch and a designated space for a wheelchair.

There’s also a departure listing on both sides of the board at each stand and on one or two stands there’s even a network map.

On the back wall there’s a couple of posters showing an alphabetical list of destinations together with bus route number and departure bay number.

There’s free to use toilets with the statutory yellow cone by the entrance, an accessible toilet and a changing places toilet …

… and a small office, with a window behind a shutter, for a supervisor.

On Friday he was kept very busy, out and about for every arrival directing passengers to leave the bus ‘inside’, through the bus station doors, rather than wander along the ‘outside’ of the stands.

And this seemed to be the main shortcoming of the new design, which may reflect a first week lack of notices and passenger unfamiliarity, but whereas the southern passenger entrance is clearly marked…

… if you arrive from the north west…

… it’s not clear at all how to gain access to the concourse …

… as the entrance is hidden away round the corner facing east which you wouldn’t spot as – until phase two is built – it’s not on a logical pedestrian route.

I saw a few passengers totally confused about how to get in, ending up walking across the bus manoeuvring area.

The doors between concourse and stand only open when a bus is present.

I took a walk along the narrow path alongside the bus parking area on the west side of the bus manoeuvring area …

… only to find it ended abruptly with no signs of where to go next, other than cross over the access road from the north.

I’m sure these teething issues will soon be sorted and it was impressive to see a supervisor employed and being so patient and helpful with everyone.

The one thing that struck me more than anything on Friday morning was how quiet the area was.

D&G Bus dominates the Crewe bus scene with 16 departures each hour including a couple of half hourly cross town routes (8 and 12) which call into the bus station in both directions, its half hourly direct route 84X to Nantwich along with five other hourly routes (31, 37, 38, 42 and 85) to Congleton, Nantwich, Newcastle and Northwich with the 85 calling in both directions on its route beteeen Nantwich and Newcastle.

Both First Bus and Stagecoach add another couple of departures per hour each – the former being the half hourly 3 to Hanley and the latter the half hourly 84 to Nantwich with an hourly extension to Chester – yes, the competition between D&G’s 84X and Stagecoach continues.

Finally there’s five journeys a day on Mirko Coaches’ route 39 via the pretty route to and from Nantwich.

I actually spotted a couple of printed timetable leaflets too. There were supplies in the window of the supervisors office…

…as well as on top of the litter bins by the relevant departure stands.

It’s a pity the bus station design didn’t stretch to some leaflet racks as D&G are one of the few bus operators in the area to produce them.

Obviously First and Stagecoach know better and don’t bother. I’m guessing they don’t want to be encouraging passengers by giving easy to access information.

As said at the beginning of this blog, it’s great to see such a welcome environment for bus passengers in Crewe after the town suffered the down-at-heel old facility for far too long.

And even better, the bus station has beaten the multi-storey car park to be open first.

But the issues with the surrounding land on the Royal Arcade site must be a cause for concern, else this new facility becomes isolated in a town centre waste land.

Roger French

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