Saturday 18th July 2026
Readers may recall I mentioned in Thursday’s blog how “I’ve known tendered bus routes with less than six passengers per journey” ….. which is a nice lead in to today’s blog which tells the story of another route to be resurrected thanks to Local Authority Bus Grant funds now sloshing around.
It’s in Leicestershire where there was much criticism after the withdrawal of tendered route 159 operated by Roberts between Hinckley and Coalville. I travelled on it in its final few weeks before withdrawal and reported my findings in a blog in February 2023.
Such was the discontent from former passengers stranded in isolated villages along the route, Leicestershire County Council reinstated it last August after a two and a half year absence on a 12 month contract.
However a significant number of former passengers are likely to have made alternative arrangements in that time as well as the fact the resurrected service is just a one bus operation instead of the previous two, leading to a much reduced timetable.
The resurrected route has been given the ‘number’ LC6 rather than 159 (to fit in with how the County Council does things these days) with the 12 month contract awarded to Centrebus. The route has been changed slightly at the Coalville end to operate via Ravenstone which is also served by a Demand Responsive LC6A operated by Anwar Taxis.
As you can see from the above map the route still has something of a “Shuffle” about it with four diversions off the main A447 between Coalville and Hinckley to serve Nailstone, Barton in the Beans, Barlestone, Newbold Verdon and Market Bosworth. End to end journey time is 85 minutes, 25 minutes of which is taken up by the double run into Market Bosworth. There’s no direct bus route for the 15 mile journey between Coalville and Hinckley along the A447 (which Google reckons takes 30 minutes) with the LC6 being the only connection.
Blog reader Keith kindly gave me the lowdown on the route last autumn including further news this April of a mini diversion to serve the grounds of the huge Woodlands Garden Centre north of Stapleton on the A447 where his wife works. Sadly the first and last journeys in both directions are timed when the gates are locked as the Garden Centre is closed.
With the twelve month contract now in its last few weeks I finally got round to taking another ride on the route on Thursday to see how it’s doing, almost 11 months since resurrection, and 30 months since original withdrawal.
I arrived in Hinckley’s Crescent Bus Station in time for the 11:50 departure to Coalville and saw the bus laying over in a lay-by…
… with a few waiting passengers sitting in a shelter opposite and, interestingly enough, chatting about the route and its timetable.
It was enlightening to hear their feedback and understand the limitations of the current timetable from their perspective.
Being just a one bus operation there are just four return journeys a day compared to the previous 90 minute frequency operated by two buses. However the timetable has been compiled to keep that one bus operational across the 13 and a quarter hour day including two breaks of 40/45 minutes in Hinckley for the driver, who stays with the bus throughout.
This makes operational sense but listening to the passengers chatting away I quickly realised it makes no sense for them at all. The main purpose of the route is to link villages along its somewhat circuitous trajectory with either Hinckley or Coalville presumably for shopping or leisure purposes. I doubt it’s suitable for employment nor much use for scholars or medical appointments.
The Hinckley passengers were noting the timetable either gives 40/45 minutes in the town between journeys, making it rather tight to get to the supermarket and do a shop (one of the three chatting away was regaling how she just missed the bus home the other day and had to go via Leicester instead), or it means a stay of four hours and 25 minutes which they naturally agreed was far too long.
Meanwhile at the other end of the route in Coalville, the spacing of journeys means either a quick five or 10 minutes visit (obviously no good) or three hours and 50 minutes which again is far too long.
In a nutshell the timetable is useless. It might keep a bus and driver occupied for a lengthy duty and therefore appear efficient but it’s not serving any purpose when it comes to attracting passengers.
After overhearing that background I wasn’t very optimistic about finding many passengers on board once we departed. At just before 11:50 the driver pulled over to the bus stop and three passengers stepped forward.
One alighted in Stapleton, one in Barlestone and one in Ibstock entailing journey lengths of 15, 54 and 71 minutes respectively. The latter two endured the lengthy double run to serve Market Bosworth. This seemed to be a delightful village with a short one-way circuit in the village centre, a village square…
… and as we headed over to a bus stop called “Terminus” at the western end of the village to turn round and return the way we’d come…
… we crossed over ‘The Battlefield Line’ (“the last remaining part of the former Ashby and Nuneaton Joint Railway which was opened in 1873. It runs from Shackerstone via Market Bosworth to Shenton in Leicestershire and is operated by the Shackerstone Railway Society”). An interesting looking heritage railway which I noted might be worth a future visit if I could work that in with the restricted LC6 timetable options, although I see Market Square is also served by Arriva’s route 153 from Leicester.
Indeed, route 153 also serves Newbold Verdon and Barlestone as part of its hourly timetable between Leicester and Market Bosworth meaning the only community without any public transport alternative to the 159/LC6 is just Stapleton on the A447, as can be seen in the extract from Leicestershire County Council’s diagrammatic style network map below (route LC6 is shown in light pink).
We didn’t pick any other passengers up as we travelled towards Coalville until reaching Ravenstone where two boarded for the short ride into the town centre who quite possibly would return home on the Anwar Taxis LC6A ‘Demand Responsive Transport’ even though it’s a fixed timetabled service with four specified return times from Coalville’s Memorial Square according to the online information.
I’m not sure why these aren’t included as short workings on the LC6 timetable which would increase awareness.
It’ll be interesting to see if the contract for route LC6 gets renewed next month. Certainly I know for sure, the passenger who alighted in Stapleton with his shopping is very much hoping it is.
My grateful thanks to Keith for keeping me informed of developments and two of the above photographs.
Roger French
Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu
BusAndTrainUser 
With Barlestone and Newbold Verdun already having as good a service as villages of that size could reasonably expect, it does feel like there could be a good case for running the LC6 direct between Market Bosworth and Barton in the Beans via Carlton, which would probably save about 20 minutes on a journey and would allow an extra daily round trip to be run within the same operating hours. Unless there’s a good reason to think that people in those villages specifically want to go to Hinckley and Coalville, it should be a relatively painless change, especially if the LC6 and 153 can be timed so as to connect at Market Bosworth.
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Thanks for another interesting blog, Roger.
Whilst the timetable is somewhat limited for off-peak travel, i’m wondering if the raison d’être of the LC6 is to provide school travel facilities to Hinckley? Without knowing the area, an 08.05 arrival in Hinckley and 15.30 departure would seem to facilitate this, albeit maybe the times are a little early in each direction. If, say, 20-odd students fill two departures a day for 190 days a year, then maybe the LC6 makes more sense than its overall timetable would suggest?
Dan Tancock
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Thanks Dan; yes I wondered about that too but 08:05 seemed an early arrival to meet that purpose, but it could be.
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From observation, there doesn’t seem to be any tie in with the requirements of Hinckley Sixth Form or North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College’s Hinckley campus (NWSLC) as I regularly see that 08.05 arrival empty as most passengers use the very frequent coordinated 148/158 operated by Stagecoach and Arriva which was covered in a previous blog by your good self. This first bus to Hinckley can be often be seen waiting for time outside of the Nags Head in Stapleton village.
The main school flow in the area seems to be to Market Bosworth academy operated in the last accedemic year by local companies Orbit Coaches and GH Watts. Beaver Bus run the majority of the other school contracts and all 3 operators contracts are closed door.
Sadly, unless I am mistaken, there was little or no County Council consultation, if there was, I missed it. Certainly the garden centre management and staff were unaware until it was mentioned in the press before it’s launch. They photocopied timetables and placed them on their information desk and the timetable does allow time for a coffee and a browse, albeit a quick one, if travelling from the Coalville direction. Sadly, thus is the result of keeping costs down by using one bus, whereas Roberts used 2 buses on the 159.
I took the first photo above on the first Saturday of the service, where as mentioned, the first Hinckley arrival was waiting time outside of the Nags Head. I sent it to Julian Peddle out of courtesy who replied commenting “nice bus, just needs passengers!”
It will be sad if the service is lost and it will do damage to people’s views of bus services locally, however, sadly, it will be understandable if funding isn’t renewed.
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I’m guessing that’s for either for the Hinckley Sixth Form and NWSLC – Hinckley Campus.
But this still looks like a very poor timetable planned by someone who hasn’t spoken to anyone local who goes shopping. They would be better picking the major school and commuter run and locking that in.
Then around that provide a useful shoppers service to just one of the towns every day. Market day in Hinckley is MFrS, Market Bosworth is Weds and Coalville is TuThFrS. So you run to Hinckley on MFr, Market Bosworth on Weds and Coalville on TuTh.
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Hurrah! And nice to see Ashton, Gardner & Dyke remembered in the heading too. Graham L.
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I beat Roger to this one! Although only on the southern section, thanks to Arriva letting me down on a connecting bus from Leicester to Coalville . . . that did mean that I could sample the 153 from Leicester to Market Bosworth. My journey was on 11 September 2025.
This is a pretty well-heeled area of Leicestershire . . . the 153 (1255 trip) left Leicester with around 20 on board, with the last few alighting in Newbold Verdon, and the bus then running with just me to Market Bosworth, and departing empty as well. MB is a very small town, with a dominant (private) school, a couple of pubs/coffee shops and not much else.
My LC6 trip arrived from Coalville with three on board; nobody alighted and I boarded. One alighted at “Terminus” and there were no more passengers all the way to Hinckley. I didn’t see the departure at 1530, but there were very few passengers at Hinckley Bus Station waiting for any buses to anywhere.
This timetable does seem to be generally unfit for any purpose other than through passengers, and there were few of those . . . dare I say a good example of “we have money to spend . . . now what shall we spend it on?”. IF there is a schools movement (there are several secondary schools around Hinckley, but as to timings . . . 0805 is decent enough, but 1530 is a bit too early). I’ll bet the last round trips (1700/1830) run empty pretty much every day!
I’d suggest an 0930 arrival into Coalville, with about 75 minutes for shopping; so a 1045 to Hinckley with (again) 75 minutes for shopping there, and back to Coalville. If there IS a schools movement, that should allow for a reasonable trip . . . if the schools are at the Hinckley end, then reversing the timetable should also work. That would also allow for sufficient driver relief breaks . . . 85 minutes in a 14-hour day (allowing for a garage run to/from Leicester) is not tight, but severely illegal!!
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If you want a route with a tiny passenger count and a timetable which is unappealing, go for a ride on the LC17 in Leicestershire.
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I also had a ride recently on LC6. On a Monday in early June I caught the 13.25 from Coalville which started with 8 people, including me. 2 left at Ravenstone, 2 at Ibstock but surprisingly the remaining 4 of us went all the way to Hinckley. We also picked up 1 at Barlestone, 1 at Newbold and 4 individually in Market Bosworth giving a total of 10 into Hinckley, 4 of alighted before the town centre.
Given the unhelpful timetable I was surprised by the numbers travelling and slightly intrigued as to their reasons!
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I don’t think your comment about the driver staying with the bus throughout is correct though because I’ve caught a morning journey and there was a driver change in Market Bosworth.
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As mentioned above this service would better run as a shopping facility on market days rather than as a through service. Could be done between a school bus to be economic. Perhaps a more direct express service end to end on Saturdays if that is when there is a demand.
The 153 used to continue to the Terminus stop. It also used to continue on Sundays to serve the steam railway and Twycross Zoo, but that ended some years ago. For a couple of summers there was a special Zoo service but no more.
Richard Warwick
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Arriva are running three routes to Twycross Zoo this summer, but none serve Market Bosworth
https://www.arrivabus.co.uk/midssummer26
KCC
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The obvious instead of 45 min break in Hinckley is short to Stapleton and return 30min round trip 15min break so may need minor rescheduling for legal or some kind of interwork elsewhere. this would give better times in Hinckley for shopping etc . Cannot see an easy solve of Stapleton to Colville though
JBC Prestatyn.
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It was very poor judgement of Leicestershire County Council not to subsidise the 159 with Roberts, then carrying about 60,000 passengers a year with strong College flows into both Coalville and Hinckley. If they were short of money they should have scrapped the 7, a useless service between Measham and Atherstone, which was scrapped in the last run of changes with the exception of what I presume is a school movement.
With one bus and further diversions not on the 159 it’s impossible to provide an attractive timetable, but as the majority of routes South of Coalville now subsidised something better should be possible
As mentioned elsewhere if you want a really useless service look at the LC17 which uses a bus and carries fresh air. It would be far better to add this bus to the LC6 and provide a better and more useful to potential users timetable
Leicestershire has about £8 million of BSIP money to spend, if you look at what’s been achieved it’s utterly pathetic, in comparison to the coordinated network in Leicester City.
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One day trains will return to Coalville, and buses like this will make valuables feeders in to the train system….
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It doesn’t help that the “main” operator at either end, and middle, of route is not the same as the one running LC6.
This means two seperate tickets/passes for customers who need to use 2 buses, all at a total price for the customer and therefore not likely to attract new audience.
Also bringing back an old commercial route in an almost identical form albeit a reduced frequency, isn’t taking lessons and working out ways to make it work this time around, but rather offering a service for a year or two to inevitably take it off again. Money should be spent on new route initiatives to drive up commercial trade and change people to sustainable transport.
Finally, as the gap is service is over 90 mins, I understand conc cards can be used on the 0810 trip but I wonder how many know this…
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I can’t believe that people are moaning about having too long in a town, be greatful for this tax payer funded bus! Why should a second bus be funded just because you want to spend less time in town?
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I don’t think that’s the point. For it to be sustainable and continue beyond a 1 or 2 year arrangement, it needs a level of appeal and practicality. This looks they have picked up a previously failed service, on a lower frequency, rather than unpick why it didn’t work and find a way to make it work now.
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