YP Letters: Dales bus a TV hit, but funding is a hard road

WOW! What a reaction to All Aboard! The Country Bus on Bank Holiday Monday. Viewing figures show that at its peak, 973,000 people were watching the BBC4 programme, the latest slow travel programme to hit our screens. Nearly a million viewers! Great credit must go to The Garden Productions Ltd for producing what must be one of the best films ever made about the Dales landscape.

But who is behind the Northern Dalesman service? Well it’s the Dales and Bowland Community Interest Company (D&BCIC) – a volunteer-run subsidiary of the Yorkshire Dales Society, a registered charity. It is a social enterprise which has been managing the DalesBus network of bus services in the Yorkshire Dales area since 2007.

The economics of rural bus operation are such that on most services the income from ticket sales, and the reimbursement rates for concessionary pass users, is insufficient to cover operating costs. There is currently an urgent appeal 
for funding for the 856 Wensleydale Flyer winter service which runs between Hawes, Leyburn and Northallerton providing the only Sunday bus link in the area. If new funding cannot be secured in the next few days, then sadly the service will end in October.