Changes coming at Go South Coast

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With 2024 back firmly in swing and the GP hopefully weaning me off these horrible pills, we move our attention to another group that has announced some changes recently. I thank those that have been in touch with me about the changes at morebus and spotting a Bournemouth local rail enthusiast also pointing it out.

If you take a look at the comments of the Portsmouth changes of First and Stagecoach, you will see that it has prompted much historical information; which I am now more educated on. I will of course copy and paste some of them here as well.

more(bus) 13s

The change at morebus is that the 13 will have a re-routing and a secondary 13a service added which caters for some of the new residential areas around Wimborne.

Possibly to confuse matters, the existing 13 via Colehill will now become 13a. The half-hourly service will become hourly, which could annoy some of the local residents.

The re-routed 13 will turn off at Canford Bottom and run via Quarter Jack Park and Leigh Park twice an hour. This will mean that overall there is a frequency increase of one bus per hour for most of the original 13 route.

Andrew Santos posted the following comments on our last post:

The Wilts & Dorset 132/133 routes had the same route between Bournemouth and Canford Bottom Roundabout with the 132 going via the B3073 (Wimborne Rd West & Leigh Road) to Wimborne and the 133 going via Colehill to Wimborne (which is currently the 13 and soon to be the 13a).

The only change to the old 132 route to the new 13 route is that it shall take the old Yellow Buses 6h route via Hayes Lane rather than the old 132 route of serving Stapehill Crescent.

Must be said, it is a little odd to see this come full circle (just over 17 years) but I do not see this as a bad thing.

Andrew Santos’ original comment

I will defer to a greater knowledge, but with the Bus Service Improvement Program grants paying for many changes in recent times, I wonder if this is more of a trial than something definitely longer term. I also wonder if there has been any developer funding for these changes.

Changes at Damory

I certainly do not get down to Weymouth anywhere near enough, however at the same time I have a week of holiday coming up that I am obliged to take. So it might be a chance for me to head down to Dorchester and pick up a service 5.

There are variations registered with the Traffic Commissioner to take effect on 19th February although from the service registration there is nothing of note about what is changing. The service does have extensions for Thomas Hardye School so it may simply be to accommodate a change there.

It is a service that goes “the long way around” and that is something that I enjoy riding occasionally, as long as there are connections if I find a pub that I want to look at.

There are also changes to the Dorchester Town service 2 on the same date.

and a non-GSC change

Just as a note, because it is also about Weymouth, South West Coaches have registered for service 200 to run from Haven Seaview to Weymouth from May. I know…. Not GSC….

Price Changes for Return Tickets

There are changes that will affect the prices of return tickets in the coming weeks.

From Sunday 28th January,

• Bluestar will increase return tickets to either £3.40 or £4
• morebus will increase return tickets to either £3.60 or £4
• Salisbury Reds will increase to £3.50, £3.60 or £4 (but not on Park and Ride)
• Southern Vectis do not have return tickets, except on their Park and Ride
• Presumably Damory will also be affected

NEW – Changes at Bluestar

Added Monday 22nd Jan

There are also changes taking place at Bluestar from Sunday 18th February. I am not sure if I just did not see these when I originally wrote the above, or it was not live on the RSS feed that I have.

Thanks go to Reece for prodding me with the Facebook stick to let me know I missed it!

• Cross-City Service 17 between Weston, the City Centre and Adanac Park has both a timetable and a route change listed.
  • It appears that trips towards Adanac Park will stop at Lord’s Hill Library (stop LE) rather than Lord’s Hill Centre (stop LB) – sharing the stop that the Bluestar 4 uses.
  • Timetable changes only run to a few minutes on most trips. Most trips towards Adanac Park are saving a minute or so, presumably the more direct route through Lord’s Hill being the cause.
• Cross-City Service 19 between Lords Hill, the City Centre and Thornhill has a timetable change:
  • Weekday rush hour services are re-timed to add a few minutes on schooldays
  • Saturday daytime services will run every 15 minutes (was every 20 minutes)
  • Sunday daytime services will run every 20 minutes (was every 30 minutes)
• Eastleigh Services 23 & 24 have a minor change that affects the schools and college hours trips and variations of up to 5 minutes. It appears that the two vehicle morning trip 424 for Barton Peveril might now be a single bus, however at the same time it might just be that the duplicate is ‘unscheduled’.