First Potteries Network update

“Since the introduction of the government funded £2 fare, we have seen steady growth in patronage across many of our services which is encouraging to see. We are working closely with Stoke city council on several initiatives to further enhance and improve service provision, especially in the evenings and at weekends, bus priority schemes and improvements to roadside infrastructure being bus stops and shelters.

Recently, we have been awarded four new contracted tenders from Stoke city council that will further improve evening and Sunday bus provision across the Potteries, these will be introduced over the coming weeks..

Service 8

A Sunday service is introduced running between Hanley and Ball Green, departing from Hanley at 0950 to 1650 hourly and in the opposite direction from Ball Green at 1015 to 1615 hourly.

Service 11

An evening service is introduced running hourly between Hanley and Longton, Monday to Friday and Saturday, with the last journey being 2310 from Hanley to Longton and 2238 from Longton back to Hanley.

Service 23

A new Sunday service will run on the normal 23 route that runs Monday to Saturday between Hanley, Newstead, Wimborne Avenue, departing from Hanley at 0940, hourly to 1640 and departing from Newstead from 0915 to 1615 hourly.

Services 36 and 36A

A brand new cross-city evening service that will run from Meir Square (36)/Meir Park (36A) to Kidsgrove via Hanley and will also serve Longton, Burslem and Tunstall. This service will operate Monday to Friday and Saturday evenings.

“The recent Transport Focus survey clearly identified that bus travel and customer satisfaction is on the up in the Potteries which is testament to the hard work, investment, and commitment everyone is putting in to make bus travel a cost effective and real alternative proposition to the car.  

“We are constantly looking at how and where we can develop our network further, providing links to places of interest and essential facilities such as hospitals and educational establishments. We want to reassure people that we have no plans to cut services or frequencies over the coming months, our objective is to increase and improve provision where demand is needed, and retail and business developments prosper.