Chronic lack of rural bus services is damaging National Parks - Colin Speakman
According to recent research by Campaign for National Parks, only six per cent of visitors to national parks are in the 16-24 age range, yet these young adults are the very people who physically and mentally can gain most from freedom to enjoy the hills and fells.
The main reason for this is lack of affordable transport. Many young people have no access to a private car, a situation worsened by escalating costs of insurance for young drivers.
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Hide AdBut public transport, whether for local communities or visitors, is still regarded as “low priority” in Yorkshire’s National Parks. Unlike commercial bus routes in larger towns and cities, where lots of people make frequent short journeys, longer rural bus routes by their very nature are unprofitable, especially in areas of high car ownership, leaving those without cars far more isolated.


In rural North Yorkshire support for rural bus services was brutally slashed at the start of austerity in 2012 from an already meagre £6 million per year for England’s largest county, to less than £2 million.
In what was a cruel and environmentally damaging move, a decision was taken to remove all support for Sunday and evening bus services.
This means with the exception of towns such as Harrogate, Scarborough, Selby and Skipton with strong cross-border flows into neighbouring counties, including York, no Sunday buses operate in rural North Yorkshire.
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Hide AdIn reality this means if you don’t own a car you are forced to stay at home between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning, a prime reason for young people leaving the area and cause of rural depopulation.


It also means visitors to much of rural Yorkshire who don’t drive are effectively kept out. This includes not only many older people but also younger people who are therefore effectively denied access to much of Yorkshire’s finest countryside – the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales national parks.
One result of this has been a massive boost to car usage and ownership, especially since the end of Covid.
This has meant ever-increasing traffic congestion and pollution, now extreme in many small towns such as Pickering or Hawes and tourist hotspots such as Malham or Bolton Abbey.
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Hide AdThankfully, in 2007 a group of dedicated volunteers and environmentalists from what is now Friends of the Dales had the idea to set up their own not-for-profit company to manage DalesBus, a pioneering Sunday bus service for walkers.
This has grown to a network of 14 integrated summer weekend services to and from the surrounding conurbations of West Yorkshire, East Lancashire, York and even Teesside to the Yorkshire Dales financed by money from public, private, and charitable sources.
Some of these services are primarily local buses which should be supported by North Yorkshire Council.
But in 2025 money for this ground-breaking DalesBus network, and its sister group Moorsbus in the North York Moors, could end, as various Government schemes cease.
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Hide AdCrucial therefore will be future support from York and North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith and West Yorkshire’s Tracy Brabin to come together to retain and support these popular cross-boundary DalesBus and Moorsbus services, and end the ban on Sunday rural bus services.
North Yorkshire, possibly illegally, do not allow use of senior passes on DalesBus services originating in the County on grounds that these are “leisure” buses, despite their local use and significant financial contribution to North Yorkshire’s visitor economy.
National parks provide huge benefits for people of all ages in terms of physical and mental health, thereby saving NHS millions. High time to safeguard these sustainable transport networks in our National Parks for the benefit of the environment, the local economy, local communities and most of all those many young people who simply cannot afford to drive.
Colin Speakman, chair of Dales Way Association.
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