Hospital park and ride bus service reduced
Lancashire County CouncilA Lancashire park and ride bus service that takes staff and visitors to hospital will be reducing its timetable as an NHS funding agreement comes to an end.
The bus which runs from Junction 34 of the M6 to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary - will be operating "less frequently" from 6 July, Lancashire County Council said.
The Service L1 - which currently runs two buses per hour - will run only one bus up to every 30 minutes from Monday to Saturday and comes with a new flat-rate fare of £2.50, a 50p increase on current adult day return pricing.
The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) said the change had come as a result of a "significant financial challenge".
'Difficult decision'
The current Service L1 is made up of two bus routes - one operated by Lonsdale Buses on behalf of Lancashire County Council and the other by UHMBT.
The council-funded service will continue to run on the same route between the Caton Road Park and Ride site near the M6 Junction 34, Lancaster city centre and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.
Times of the first and last buses would remain unchanged and parking at the Caton Road Park and Ride site would remain free, Lancashire County Council said.
The NHS-funded service, the trust said, was used by "at most 27 colleagues" - describing this as "extremely low compared with the cost to the trust of £190,000 a year".
"After careful consideration and reviewing how much it costs to fund the service compared to how much it is used, we have made the difficult decision to stop funding this additional service."
The trust said hospital staff could continue to use the service at a daily cost of £2.50 for a return journey or £10.00 for a weekly ticket.
Full details of the updated timetable, fares and information about using the Lancaster Park and Ride service are available on Lancashire County Council's website.
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