What’s Liskeard got that Lewes wants?

Thursday 8th October 2026

Answer: a brand new bus station.

And, unlike Heckmondwike, Liskeard isn’t in a Mayoral Authority. But it is in a Unitary Council which has had two financially attractive Devolution Deals (2015 and 2023); using these to boost public transport through various initiatives all over the County .

The new Liskeard bus station, which opened in July, is an example of such initiatives. It came about following suggestions made by a local Active Travel Group. Blog reader Peter let me know about this development earlier this year. He’s a member of the Group and explained how he “had expressed concern that the two bus stops in the main road, opposite the Post Office, had been designed in the days of Western Greyhound’s small buses and that Go Cornwall’s large buses were inevitably clipping the kerbstones when arriving and departing. Plus, on occasions when two buses were needing to serve the stop, or coinciding with a National Express departure, traffic would come to a standstill through the town.”

Peter went on to say how “Go South West were asked their opinion and, although the location of the stops was/is ideal as a traffic objective, right in the middle of the town, they suggested a transport interchange, off the main street might be better and could also cater for active travel (cycling) at the same time.”

By a happy coincidence the town’s former Cattle Market nearby had become redundant with a number of new build shared work spaces planned to encourage employment as an alternative use of the site. Following the discussions, Cornwall Council went away and designed a transport interchange to also occupy the site which in a nice touch of modal shift also ousted part of a car park which had used the site. Can you imagine many towns getting away with doing that?

The new bus station is sited bottom left on the attached image with the bus stops by the Post Office in Barras Street continuing to be available but obviously not so busy and congested now there’s space for buses to layover in between journeys in the new bus station.

When I visited the town the weekend before last, I noticed National Express still use those bus stops for its routes to Penzance to London and Birmingham.

The bus station comprises four stands for buses marked A, B, C and D with a fifth stop for buses to set down alighting passengers before continuing on to one of the layover/departure stands.

There’s plenty of room for buses to reverse off the stands…

… including a small additional area for those from stand A…

… so as to avoid buses parked on the other stands.

A bus shelter with seats, displays of departure times – both electronic and printed – looks out on to the four stands so passengers can clearly see when their bus comes in.

There’s also a countywide network map on display which is great to see, although as I’ve mentioned in previous posts is a bit small to make out for those with ageing eyesight.

And, of course, this being the product of an Active Travel Group, there are five arch stands to accommodate up to ten cycles too, albeit in the open.

During my visit on Saturday morning there was enough room for everyone wanting a seat or to wait in the shelter but I guess on a rainy day at a busy time it might get a bit crowded. By a happy coincidence the bus station has been sited next to the long standing Market Cafe…

… which must be enjoying a welcome boost in trade from bus passengers and now even opens on alternate Sundays.

There’s a rather nice area alongside the cafe where customers and passengers can sit enjoying a meal and a drink as well as watching for when their bus comes in.

For a town the size of Liskeard (population around 12,000) it’s a great facility especially as the town enjoys a pretty good bus service with a variety of routes linking it with various villages and neighbouring towns with most routes terminating in the town and only one – route 11 (Plymouth to Dobwalls) passing through.

Back in East Sussex, Lewes (population around 17,000), of course, is characterised with most bus routes passing through rather than terminating thus making the actual siting of a bus station crucial.

Nevertheless, any Lewes residents visiting Liskeard will be envious of this new facility, which as Peter explained, is also now located conveniently alongside new employment facilities which hopefully will prove popular with the new breed of ‘co-workers’ and ‘hot deskers’.

As mentioned, National Express continue to use the main bus stop in Barras Street but you need to get on to your hands and knees to check the coach departure times and then it’s just a QR code.

To finish off this Cornish themed blog I took the opportunity to travel to and from Liskeard on two of Transport for Cornwall’s superb bus routes with lovely scenery and, as usual, very challenging driving conditions for bus drivers with narrow lanes and some thoughtless motorists,

Having stayed overnight in Plymouth I caught Plymouth CityBus route 70 to Torpoint to pick up the delightful Go Cornwall Bus route 75 over to Liskeard. Route 70, operated by a smart Wright StreetDeck Electroliner is one of the very few bus routes in Britain which uses a ferry as part of the journey – in this case linking Devonport with Torpoint across the River Tamar.

The timetable includes a generous allowance for the bus to link with the ferry and reach the other side making for a stress free connection to route 75 which terminates on the Cornish side of the River.

That’s just as well as there are only six journeys a day – roughly every two hours – so you want to be confident of making the connection and I easily caught the 09:50 departure from Torpoint.

As we headed out of the town past HMS Raleigh I was joined by another passenger who travelled to Seaton. The driver did a fantastic job encountering traffic along narrow stretches of road…

… as well as encountering an awkwardly parked car on a yellow line in Downderry but with excellent precision managed to squeeze the Enviro200 through the gap with the narrowest of margins – even more challenging than passing through Bolton Abbey arch in the Yorkshire Dales.

I did congratulate her and say how impressive that was.

As the one passenger alighted in Seaton, we then picked up another who travelled all the way to Liskeard which we reached on time at 10:58 and where the driver, having parked up, then went off for a break – which I guess was in the facility Go Cornwall seems to have which I spotted in the town centre.

My journey from Liskeard was on route 73 down to Looe as, despite making that journey many times on the train along GWR’s lovely Looe Valley Line, I’d never experienced the parallel bus route which continues to Polperro – a place I have had the pleasure of visiting back in Western Greyhound days.

The hourly route 73/73A was due to depart Liskeard at 11:20 with the bus having arrived on route 74 from Callington at 11:14. In the event this only came into the bus station at 11:18 but although six passengers stayed on the bus to travel through on to the 73 there was a driver changeover and the incoming driver headed off for his break.

Unfortunately what looked like a bus used for staff shuttles was occupying Stand D and with Stands A, B and C also occupied, the driver had to leave the bus behind the minibus.

When the driver for the 73 arrived (the same driver of the 75 having had a mini break) it was by now 11:25 and myself and the six passengers boarding had to use the gap between the buses, but we were soon all on board and left at 11:28 picking another passenger up as we passed Liskeard railway station and two more further along the route making for an impressive 15 on board.

We arrived into Looe at 11:55, 13 minutes late but on what was a very enjoyable journey offering different views of this lovely part of the county to the train and well worth doing as an alternative.

Peter tells me the railway between Liskeard and Looe was saved from the Beeching axe due to the alternative by road along the B3254 being considered unsuitable for a rail replacement bus service due to its narrow sections. I can understand why they thought that with the driver once again doing a fantastic job in challenging conditions on the road. Interestingly although we were running late, the Lisekard bus on the route waited in the village of Duloe for us to arrive as the road north of there is particularly narrow with no scope for two buses to pass each other.

I returned back to Liskeard on the train which had arrived into Looe with around 70 passengers alighting so you can see the benefit of keeping this splendid railway line going, even though there were only around half a dozen of us heading back to Liskeard and there were no takers at the three request stops along the way.

The guard did his usual act of changing the points just south of Coombe Junction Halt (which is now only served by a couple of journeys a day)…

… so we could ascend up to Liskeard on one of the quirkiest approaches to a station in Britain, where the branch line crosses underneath the main line…

… before terminating at platform 3 sited at 90 degrees to the other platforms 1 and 2 on the main line.

There’s also a wonderful display of heritage memorabilia on the platform too.

What a shame back in the 1960s the A26 between Uckfield and Lewes wasn’t as narrow and twisty as the B3254. Dr Beeching might have taken a different view meaning Lewes lost out on that link as well as in more recent times, its bus station.

Roger French

Blogging timetable: 06:00 TThS