This new bus route does exist despite what the signs say

Saturday 20th June 2026

Blog reader Mark contacted me last week sharing his frustration at the lack of information and marketing about a new bus route introduced 12 weeks ago, at the end of March, between Hartlepool and the villages of Elwick and Dalton Piercy.

Route 51 is funded by Tees Valley Combined Authority and operated by Stagecoach. It comprises an hourly Monday to Saturday timetable taking one bus with an 11 hour operating day between 07:00 and 19:00.

It’s one of two routes introduced by the Authority as part replacements for the withdrawal, after six years, of the Stagecoach operated TeesFlex DRT service which was deemed to be no longer affordable.

The 51 is joined by new (also Stagecoach operated) route X85 linking Redmarshall, Whitton, Stillington, and Bishopton to Stockton town centre and also an extension of Arriva’s route 10 linking Great Burdon, Sadberge, Little Stainton, Bishopton, Redmarshall, Carlton, Stillington, and Great Stainton thereby covering much of the area previously served by TeesFlex.

Mark got in touch to explain how route 51 restores a long lost timetabled bus service to the two villages of Elwick and Dalton Piercy as well as western suburbs of Hartlepool which “have not seen a [scheduled] bus in decades, ever since the days of Hartlepool Corporation ran its service 16 which survived post privatisation until being swallowed up by Stagecoach in the 1990s”.

Unsurprisingly the new service has been welcomed by the very few people who’ve found out about it and begun using it which is despite, what Mark describes as, “the promotion of this valuable new link by Tees Valley is appalling”, adding “it’s designed to fail” not least as reports suggest it’s only being funded initially until July.

Local media reports covered the launch which no doubt helped raise some awareness but the issues Mark has found incomprehensible were no, or even worse, misleading information at many of the bus stops served by the new route, not least those declaring “No Public Services” when the new route clearly does.

The most glaring example of this is right outside Hartlepool railway station itself where the terminal point used by buses on the 51 states unhelpfully “No Public Services” on the bus stop flag, as I found when I visited the town last Friday to take a ride on this newly restored timetabled route. Despite what the bus stop flag proclaims, at least the timetable case below does show a departure listing for route 51 and an isolated journey on route 7.

I took a ride on the 14:05 from the underused Hartlepool Interchange (four bus stops alongside the station with a massive shelter … for just the hourly 59, now joined by the hourly 51, with an odd journey on the 7 and a smattering of National Express departures)…

… as I wanted to see how many bus stops we’d pass declaring no buses stop there despite the route now being in its twelfth week, as well as wondering how many passengers would travel.

The bus arrived from its previous stop at Tesco Extra, a mile to the south of the Interchange, at 14:03 with one passenger alighting and no-one else on board.

Soon after leaving the Interchange we picked up two passengers by the nearby large Morrisons supermarket and one more in Victoria Road in the town centre then wended our way through the western suburbs of Ward Jackson Park and West Park where one of the three passengers alighted and, sure enough, all the bus stops on this exclusive section of route only served by the 51 were declaring “No Public Services” as well as either sporting an empty timetable case…

… or no timetable case at all.

It’s not very reassuring for prospective passengers.

Leaving Hartlepool’s western suburbs and passing through some lovely surrounding countryside…

… at least the bus stops have lost the proclamation ‘no services’ stop there, but still don’t give much confidence a bus calls by…

… although at least the stop at the Green in Elwick had a timetable case but I couldn’t see if it contained an up to date timetable. Hopefully it did, but when Mark visited that location he found “the bus stop timetable is woefully in a bad condition and hopelessly out of date. Again no mention of a regular headway service 51 now runs into Hartlepool. So how does this encourage usage when it kept a ‘best kept secret’ from the public.”

It’s where the two passengers still on board alighted.

We then made our way on to the busy A19 for a short stretch south before turning off for on this anti-clockwise loop arrangement to Dalton Piercy and the return to Hartlepool.

It’s a tightly timed hour’s circuit with not much scope for recovery if running late. As we passed through Hartlepool’s western suburbs again it was school turning out time and one child boarded for a few stops with two more passengers boarding in the town centre to travel to the station.

We passed through the car park of the large Tesco Extra at 15:00, four minutes down, where Mark also notes “it’s another missed opportunity – no bus stop pole or any indication a bus service option is available to shoppers – never mind when it runs or where it goes…why is Tees Valley keeping the service 51 a mystery?”

On timekeeping, thankfully the 10 minutes allowance from Tesco to reach the Interchange is at last a generous amount of time as we arrived back there at 15:05, the departure time for the next journey. So we just made it in an hour.

Mark took up the lack of information and misleading bus stop messages with Stagecoach with his letter being passed to the Depot Manager in Hartlepool who replied “it is up to Tees Valley Council to put the promotion & infrastructure right”. Mark had copied his letter to Tees Valley Combined Authority but there was no reply forthcoming. He also wrote to Hartlepool’s MP but as Mark lives in Sunderland, rather than the constituency, the MP was unable to respond to the points raised.

As Mark frustratingly and rightly observed in his letter to Stagecoach and Tees Valley…..

“Its a well meaning and well thought through link bus service . This is now running and established. Yet, it has to be backed up with the infrastructure and publicity/ timetable information en route. Otherwise its just a ‘ghost’ bus known to a select few or those bold enough to ignore the lack or misleading information provided at the bus stop. At present this service is designed to fail and without action will. Proof on Saturday was: we were the only passengers on board what would have been otherwise an empty bus . Please address this issue urgently as the current situation is not providing a ‘service’ or helping to increase demand or passenger awareness of a good link bus service which has the potential to grow and bring benefits to the travelling public. Await your reply with interest as to what action you propose to take and when?”

It’ll be interesting to see if Tees Valley keep the service going beyond next month which, after all, at just over three months after introduction, even with excellent publicity and promotion, is far too short to get a restored bus service attracting enough regular passengers, not least when TeesFlex was funded for six years!

Roger French

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