A Landmark as it’s Go-Ahead not Going Forward

Tuesday 8th July 2025

The end of an era for two odd ball tendered bus routes beckons in a few weeks time. I took a ride on both routes last week to experience the passing of the old guard.

Both upcoming changes are as a consequence of a county council re-tender exercise resulting in a change of operator that’s been associated with the route for many years.

First up in Hertfordshire, where Arlesey based Landmark Coaches is losing its only local bus service – the one bus operated route 53 which comprises three variations of a town route in Letchworth Garden City. It’s a kind of three-bus-routes-for-the-price-of-one arrangement.

I did an hour’s circuit of the route last Wednesday morning which included all three route variations and it was remarkable how everyone travelling knew each other and no passenger needed to show their concessionary bus pass as the driver had obviously long ago sussed out everyone had one. Indeed there was no ticket machine to tap passes on to and that probably explained why the bus location wasn’t being tracked on websites and apps

One passenger did pay a cash fare and received a ticket from a hand held device kept in a little basket at the front of the bus and on which the driver also noted the number of passes.

Prior to catching the bus, I’d had a good look at Hertfordshire’s very helpful Intalink website and saw all the roads the 53 passed along and realised it was going to be a voyage of discovery.

The online timetable is to Intalink’s clear layout but as a stranger I didn’t really know where all the timing points were so that added to the intrigue of where the bus would go.

I joined the hour’s cycle in the town centre at 11:02.

Four passengers travelled on the first mini circuit to the Wilbury area in the west of the town including one man who stayed on board all the way round and went back to the town centre and I wondered if he might also be preparing material for a blog. We also picked up four passengers as we went round the circuit and brought them into town. That rounder took 16 minutes.

Next up was a slightly shorter version of the above circuit taking 11 minutes which saw one passenger going home and two coming into town and my fellow potential blogger stayed on board for that circuit too.

Then it was time for the biggy. This circuit, to the Lordship Estate area in the south of the town, takes 28 minutes and was the busiest with six passengers taken home and four coming into town.

It was also when my fellow potential blogger finally alighted on the way round having been on the bus for 48 minutes.

The driver told me he’s going to retire at the end of August when the contract ends and Richmonds Coaches takes over the replacement contract having won the tender.

We won’t see the likes of Landmark operating a service of this kind again.

Meanwhile over in Oxfordshire the County Council has put some routes out to competitive tender which have been the mainstay of community bus operators including Goring based Going Forward.

Going Forward has posted the following explanation on its website, at bus stops and on board buses…

… explaining why its eight year association with route 134 linkng Goring with Wallingford ends in a few weeks time.

The Community Bus Company has run the service with volunteer drivers for the past eight years giving the route much loving care and personal service during that time. It took it over from GoRide in 2007 which, in turn, had rescued the route four and a half years earlier when the County Council ended the tender previously operated by Heyfordian.

Going Forward also runs a small number of other shopper type routes in this part of south Oxfordshire which it says it will continue after the loss of the 134 and the driver I travelled with told me he hoped to develop day trip type routes for the Company’s loyal band of passengers.

I took a ride on the 11:20 from Goring & Streatley railway station last Tuesday morning and saw how the regular driver – who volunteers with the Company on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – knew all the passengers and had a welcome greeting for all of them.

Six passengers travelled with one boarding in Goring, two in South Stoke and three in North Stoke, all going to Wallingford on this delightful rural route.

The bus turns round in the rather grand Market Place in Wallingford where the driver was ready to help returning passengers with the shopping for the next journey back to Goring.

The driver was sad his association with route 134 was coming to an end. He told me Thames Travel had won the tender from September remarking how that company, part of Oxford Bus, was expanding through tender gains all over a wide area of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey and buying up other small companies and wondered where it will end.

He was also understandably puzzled how a bus route staffed by volunteers requires more public funding to keep it going than it would seem a global public transport company needs. Which is an intriguing thought.

Whatever the answer to that puzzle, instead of Going Forward it’ll be Go-Ahead for Goring from September.

Roger French

Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu

19 thoughts on “A Landmark as it’s Go-Ahead not Going Forward”

  1. First and Last Mile in Oxfordshire are in exactly the same position with their school service having grown from nothing to the point where it is now commercially viable for Go Ahead to operate and having lost out to West Oxfordshire Community Transport who submitted a lower bid when the new contract was awarded in the same round as Going Forward. It is very hard for small operators who have very limited resources and cannot compete to survive unless factors such as social value are considered as well as price. Having the overwhelming backing of the local community ultimately does not enable these services to survive without local authority support as well. First and Last Mile may be closing and will soon be forgotten if the new services work well but what cannot change is that both FLM and Going Forward launched and sustained services in areas where it was regarded as impossible to do so and showed what could be done.

    DAVID MILES

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  2. I have never been a fan of community bus services using volunteers as they potentially can undercut commercial operation and bid lower. There might have been an argument in the past before the DDA when commercial costs did not have to require the adaptations to vehicle (and journey times) to accommodate wheelchairs or similar to enable all people to travel together. IF subsidy nowadays is needed it should come from general taxation / local taxation from all. The tender will also increase GDP as it the full cost including profit will now be paid with staff and employers contribution to NHI and pensions if full like any other business. This meets the present govt objectives and should be applied to all similar operations currently in receipt of subsidies.

    JBC Prestatyn

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  4. There’s a slight irony to all of this. When Thames Travel started, many moons ago, its first route was from Wallingford to Goring Station. It was a pretty intensive service, meeting trains well into the evening. Then the focus shifted to extending the X40 Wallingford-to-Oxford bus to Reading, which was deemed the best way to connect Wallingford to the rail network. Now we have a very high frequency bus from Wallingford to Didcot Station, so that can also be used. One point the article misses is, due to the lack of rail electrification to Oxford, there are no Goring-Oxford through trains. So in theory, some could try that journey by bus, changing in Wallingford, and it could be more convenient (CH, Oxford).

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  5. I see no problem with Community Transport and Community Interest companies operating infrequent services with volunteers, good luck to them , and in my view that’s what they should be doing.

    Its when these operators then think they can operate mainstream bus services and undercut local independent operators that there is a problem and lack of level playing field. And they continually go into liquidation, London, Bristol, South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Manchester, Derbyshire Community Transport and more, because they don’t understand the real world and have abysmal financial management.

    And local authorities never learn

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    1. local authorities are damned if they do etc..,Can you imagine the pasting they’d get in the local media if they reigned in “plucky little volunteer run Fluffy Buses” and were seen to favour the big bad GoArrivaCoach PLC.

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  6. Perhaps the 1930 Commission (1933 Act?) that introduced at Road Service Licence was indeed the best economic system ( maybe with a bit more flexilbilty for innovative services ) I did do an analysis that appeare to show competition for franchising (assuming Local Authority knows routes and financing best) was generally better economically but I might have chosen statistics to get the answer I had in my head, perhaps as the Status quo wasnt working and the unfettered proposed free for all that Tony Ridley had in mind hadnt really worked in the 1920s.

    JBC Prestatyn

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    1. I think you mean Nicholas Ridley MP. Professor Tony Ridley CBE was Managing Director of London Underground, among many other things.

      Steven Saunders

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  7. “He was also understandably puzzled how a bus route staffed by volunteers requires more public funding to keep it going than it would seem a global public transport company needs. Which is an intriguing thought.”

    Surely the point here is that the current operator (Going Forward) decided not to tender for the service, so that we don’t know if their tender would have been higher than that required by Thames Travel?

    RC169

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    1. Many operators of community bus services are well intentioned but commercially inept and most are in recite of LA funding

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  8. Slightly off topic but a comment on the Cambridgeshire item above. At least they are publishing fairly detailed information for public scrutiny, which hopefully will mean that some of the more hopeless services are scrapped. And the Tiger routes recently introduced will be added to this table in due course for more scrutiny as to their economics.

    Also interesting how many Stagecoach Cambridge City routes receive some support.

    Some of the numbers need to be used carefully. For example the 26 Cambridge to Royston is commercial with what I assume are some Deminimus extra journeys, so these passenger numbers only refer to those journeys and not the whole service

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    1. Agree that the data is very useful although it would be interesting to see more nuanced metrics such as social value incorporated. It opens up the debate on the value of the services but how it’s used for decision making will be key!

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  9. I took a ride on Landmark 53 today, 10 July. Nobody could board the 11.22 journey from Letchworth station as the bus swept past the stop at 11.20 without stopping. A generous load of 13 came in on the long section.

    Is this the same company as Landmark Travel or Coaches based, I believe, in Harpenden and run by a dubious character in the 2980s?

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    1. I don’t know about the 1980s, but Landmark have been going since 1999 according to Busdata. Although the 53 is their only bus service now, back in 2015 they had several others, but they surrendered the contracts at the end of May that year. A couple of weeks earlier a friend and I decided to have a Landmark day, to see as many of these services as was reasonably practical. I found the account of our day that I wrote for a now long-defunct e-group, and I’ve appended it below in case anyone finds it of interest.

      Michael Wadman

      My Landmark photographs are on https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelwadman/albums/72177720316444429/

      With Landmark due to hand in most of their contracted bus services at the end of next week, I thought that some rides on, and photographs of, this operator would be in order. So an expedition was hastily organised and this morning I got up ridiculously early to get a train to Victoria and then:

      07:30    Victoria – Luton   09:02  – Arriva the Shires 757, which I forgot to note the vehicle details of.

      Early running resulted in the coach having to sit at the stop before the airport for several minutes waiting time because, according to the driver, of the limitations on the number of Arriva vehicles allowed in the airport bus station at any time, which must have been irritating for passengers bound for the airport. The new enquiry office at the interchange appeared to have been built but not yet fitted out. Of course, in a sane world it would have been completed in time for the opening of the interchange.

      Big surprise at Luton (to me at any rate) was the appearance of MB Citaro Bendy MH 06 YJF on Universitybus 636 – is this normal? The bus was new to Truronian for use on the Eden Project Park + Ride.

      10:00    Luton – Hitchin  10:50 – Landmark 88 – MX 08 NHY – LDV Maxus

      Lovely route, shame about the vehicle. Formerly LT 364, I think, and operated by RFs in LT days. I would definitely have preferred an RF this morning. I’m told that in those days, when the service was more frequent and required two buses, they would meet up at Breachwood Green and follow each other round the anti-clockwise loop, as that was about the only way that they could pass in the narrow lanes.

      MX 08 NHY was totally devoid of any form of destination display, which appeared to be normal and can’t have done a lot for the takings. On which subject another thing that it was devoid of was a ticket machine, so the driver was unable to issue me with an Interlink Explorer and insisted on charging me the full single fare of £5.10 . Not impressed.

      11:01    Hitchin – Letchworth  11:17 – Universitybus 635 – MB318 (BF 59 NJE) – MB Citaro

      11:20    Letchworth circular via Beach Hill  11:31 – Landmark 53 – AA 05 BLU – ADL Dart SLF, new to Bluebird of Middleton

      Totally pointless journey of course, but the bus was there, we were there, we had some time to kill, and it meant that we could claim to have done all the Landmark services today (if you deem the 90 and 91 to be one service).

      Back at Letchworth, we waited for the 91 and were entertained by the other passengers’ conversation on the subject of changes to their local bus services which featured generally disparaging remarks on the quality of Landmark’s vehicles. Apparently it was not unknown during their tenure for the 91 to be operated by a full-size coach. I was actually quite looking forward to that, but ‘twas not to be.

      11:50    Letchworth – Baldock  12:04 – Landmark 91 – W364 ABD – Dennis Dart SLF / Plaxton, originally a Dawsonrentals hire vehicle

      I now have a terrible confession to make. Today was the first time that I have ever been to (as opposed to through) Baldock. It turned out to be a pleasant little town with some interesting old buildings, and it would have been nice to have had longer to look around. Changes in traffic patterns over the years have resulted in what used to be the main thoroughfare, which stage coaches (the horse-drawn variety) would traverse on their journeys along the Great North Road, becoming a quiet side road at right angles to what is now the main street.

      12:35  Baldock – Stevenage  12:56 – Landmark 391 – N927 NAP – MB 709D / Alexander, new to East Kent (in an unpleasantly garish orange livery for the North Herts College)

      This caused a bit of confusion as it turned up some time before the inward bus was due and sat athwart the adjacent taxi rank. We speculated that it might be a crew ferry for a driver change, but on investigation it turned out that it was in fact a replacement bus to sub the incoming one. The bus being replaced couldn’t have been much more different, being an ex-Anglia Bus Scania OmniCity (sorry, didn’t get the number). By this time the Merc had moved onto the stop so the Scania pulled up behind it, the drivers swapped over (along with the bit of cardboard that served as a destination display), I snatched a quick photo, and off we went. I never thought I’d feel nostalgic for Merc 709s, but I quite enjoyed this journey. Passengers waiting for other buses at Lister Hospital looked at it with amazement and disbelief: a dinosaur had suddenly appeared in their midst.

      13:25  Stevenage – Victoria  15:17 – Universitybus 635 / 797 – MB319 (BF 59 NJJ) – MB Citaro

      Where the main item of interest was London General’s blue London By Night-livered open top PVL224 (Y824 TGH) which was one of the vehicles in use on the 811 to the Chelsea Flower Show.

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  10. In your description of the Letchworth town service you briefly touch on one of my pet hates: Timing points that aren’t shown on the map, and features on the map that aren’t in the timetable.

    Lyme Regis used to have a town service that was shaped something like an octopus. The map showed the roads that the various tentacles traversed but didn’t actually describe the outer termini. And the timetable listed the outer termini but didn’t say which roads each tentacle went down. So you had no idea which timing point referred to which tentacle or which tentacle the bus would be doing at any given time.

    You wouldn’t have thought it too difficult to get the timetable and the map to agree on nomenclature, but apparently it is.

    Rant over.

    Michael Wadman

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    1. Hear, hear! Very frustrating. It should be a standard of every map and timetable that the timing points are shown on both. Also try to avoid descriptions such as ‘top of High Street’, ‘outside Booths’ which aren’t clear on a standard map without further research.

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  11. How were you able to find out so far in advance about the changes to the Landmark 53 service? I can still find nothing about it on the Council Intalink website and when I asked was told the details would be announced in due course. So where did the information come from?

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  12. Where was the information about the Landmark 53 service obtained? There is nothing about it on the Herts Council Intalink website and when I enquired I was told the changes would be published later this month. So where did the info in the blog come from?

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