DalesBus beats cuts to open season

Many DalesBus services are due to hit the road on Friday for the summer season – defying cuts in funding.

Despite funding cuts implemented by North Yorkshire County Council, the DalesBus network of summer Sunday and bank holiday buses has been improved for 2011, says the Dales and Bowland Community Interest Company.

The community interest company says this is due to the success of DalesBus over the past year, with passenger numbers growing by almost 30 per cent, allowing it to roll over funding and attract support from various agencies including Metro and voluntary bodies such as the Friends of the Settle Carlisle Line and the Yorkshire Dales Society.

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However the community interest company has warned that it is using all of its reserves to support the summer network.

So winter services and the future of DalesBus in 2012 depend upon continued passenger growth and new sources of funding, it said.

Many services start on Good Friday and all will run on the Royal wedding holiday as well as Easter Monday and May Day Monday. The main bus services from Leeds are the Yorkshire Dalesman 800 to Bolton Abbey, Grassington, Kettlewell, Aysgarth and Hawes (also serving York, Tadcaster and Seacroft) and 870/874 to Bolton Abbey, Grassington and Buckden (also serving Wakefield and Outwood).

Connections are available at Ilkley for Malham or people can catch a train to Skipton to pick up the bus outside the station for the journey to Malham. An hourly service operates throughout the day to Grassington from Skipton Bus Station while Cravenlink buses link Ilkley and Skipton stations serving Embsay and Bolton Abbey.

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An extra service will operate from May 1 to Richmond via Pateley Bridge, Fountains Abbey, Jervaulx Abbey, Middleham and Leyburn; this will begin at Wetherby via Collingham, Bardsey, Wellington Hill and Fearnville.