East Midlands inter-urban bus links at a glance using bustimes.org

What make EMCCA different is easy to see.

I created the map below this afternoon, with a explanatory note attached.

I will create a Sunday version of this map on Sunday when bustimes.org shows live times. I suspect the map will look different. It is difficult to believe but Worksop has no bus links with Mansfield or Retford. All its bus links are, with the exception of the Sherwood Arrow (SA on the map) into South Yorkshire (Rotherham and Doncaster).

I am a great believer in ‘following the buses’ when it comes to where bus users want to go in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile for a commercial bus company to provide a bus service. Nottinghamshire County Council must have considered subsidising services between Worksop and Mansfield and Retford.

There is, of course, the Robin Hood railway line between Nottingham, Bulwell, Sutton, Mansfield, Mansfield Woodhouse and Worksop, but is no substitute for a bus service linking the two towns.

Logic says that the EMCCA should cede its northern towns to the neighbouring metropolitan mayoral authorities. The links between the north and south of EMCCA are minimal. The electorate in these areas should be given a vote on as to where they see their future, as should voters living in East Staffordshire who have more affinity with the East Midlands than the West Midlands and Stoke-on-Trent.

Robert Howard