As a car driver, I don’t usually pay much attention to bus and train times, unless I am going up to London for a day out. During early August, I needed to get to Ashford town centre using public transport. I looked up the bus times to go to Rye and then the train times to Ashford, calculating when I would need to leave, in order to meet my appointment. Then I remembered the Beach Bus!
Stagecoach introduced a new service direct from Ashford to Camber for the duration of the school summer holidays. What a great idea! The service (Service 500) departs from both Ashford and Camber four times a day. The route goes through Lydd, so it avoids the clogged-up Rye-to-Camber road on busy days. As we know, Stagecoach cancels our Rye to Camber service on a Sunday if the roads are gridlocked – and who can blame them? It messes up the ongoing timetable beyond Camber if the bus is stuck for an hour or two just getting here from Rye!
Here are the stats:
Usual route to Ashford using public transport – Bus from Camber, 5 mins past the hour, cost £2.00; arrive Rye 26 minutes past the hour and wait 22 minutes for the train; train departs 48 minutes past the hour, cost £9.70 (return ticket); arrive Ashford 10 past the hour; walk into town centre from the train station – approx. 10 minutes – so the total journey time is 1 hour, 15 minutes, total cost is £11.70.
Using the Beach Bus – there are 4 departure times, but I used the 1320 service (1323 from the village centre, where I boarded); arrival in Ashford town centre (County Square – so no walking into town) at 1421 so a total journey time of 58 minutes, total cost was £5.00 return, saving £6.70 on traditional routes. For my journey, the return bus at 1535 was too soon for me, so I caught the later service at 1750, which gave me time to take in a late lunch and have a little wander round the shops. The £6.70 I saved covered the cost of my food – who says there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’?!
The whole experience was seamless from start to finish. I took a book with me, with the intention of spending almost an hour of peaceful reading, without having to get on and off of buses and trains or wait around on platforms. However, I was fascinated by the views from the top deck of the double decker bus (you miss so much when you are driving…) so I didn’t read much. The bus driver was helpful, cheerful and friendly – she was even wearing Hawaiian Lei-style garlands (well, it’s a Beach Bus and we want to join in the spirit of things, she told me). The service ran on time, stopping in Lydd, Old Romney, Ham Street railway station, the Designer Outlet Village, Ashford railway station and County Square Shopping Centre. And all for £5.00 return fare – so much cheaper than the petrol my car would have used going to Ashford!
The only down-side I saw was that there were only about 6 or 7 people on the bus on each of the journeys, despite it being a hot sunny day in August. I fear that Stagecoach might not run it again next summer if the uptake is minimal this summer. It has to cover its costs and that requires as many passengers as possible.
If people use it, the service helps with traffic congestion in our village, and also eases parking problems on those busy days. At least Stagecoach is being pro-active and trying to come up with workable solutions for the problems that occur here on ‘Red Days’ – many other agencies seem to ignore the problems, fobbing us off with the usual line that is ‘only for a few days each year’!
On top of that, it is a treat for Camber residents to have a direct service to Ashford without all the chopping and changing and waiting around that we currently experience if we need to use public transport to get into Ashford!
We will not know if Stagecoach will run the Service 500 again next summer, until the time comes. However, I will certainly be using it again before it ceases on 31st August. Use it or lose it – that is something we Camber residents know all too well! So, this summer, I will be making a couple more trips to Ashford – maybe lunch in the town, or shopping at the Outlet – just because!
