The Tragic Missed Opportunity of Cornwall
If there is one bus network, other than my immediate local one, that I know well, it is the bus network of West Cornwall.
As a family, we’ve been visiting Penzance at least once a year since I was 5.
But this year, I was particularly looking forward to our easiest-ever visit.
I’d read a lot about the ambitions of Cornwall Council in improving the bus network - and the money they’ve been given by central Government to help.
As a car-free family visiting a rural area, I assumed we’d benefit from more buses and better service.
But I’m afraid we were in for a serious disappointment.
Some history
For most of our time visiting Cornwall, the dominant local operator has been First; who bought the local National Bus Company subsidiary at privatisation.
Up until last year, they operated virtually the whole local network, with a mixture of commercial and tendered routes.
But recently, everything changed.
Cornwall Council awarded the tendered journeys to the Go-Ahead group, with a massive investment in shiny new buses.
All this big investment should be good for the user, right? Wrong.
Unfortunately, while there are lots of shiny buses from both First and Go-Ahead, an integrated network has become a disintegrated one.
How it can be done
A week before going to Cornwall, I spent a few days in Brighton visiting friends and family. To get into town from where we were staying, we needed route 27 (Brighton & Hove). I also went for a big family picnic in the South Downs (route 77, Brighton & Hove), went to see family in Durrington (route 700, Stagecoach) and to a funeral in Partridge Green (route 17, Stagecoach).
(Yes, these really are the journeys I took in Brighton and, yes, it is pure coincidence that they all involve the number 7. Though, sadly, I never actually used route 7 while I was there…).
Even though two of the routes I needed to use are operated by Stagecoach, they all appear on the Brighton & Hove Brighton area bus map. They also appear on the Brighton & Hove-printed bus stop timetables, with a neat little logo explaining which operator’s service is which.
Most importantly of all, the Discovery day pass for £9 allows travel on all operators in Sussex and Surrey.
As a result, the trip just worked.
How it is being done in Cornwall
It is actually quite extraordinary. There are now two overlapping bus networks in Cornwall: one commercial, one tendered. Both cover the entire county and neither give the smallest hint that the other exists.
Bus stop flags appear to be being replaced with these new “Transport for Cornwall” signs. They include the URL transportforcornwall.co.uk. Following this link takes you to the web page for Go Cornwall (the operator of the tendered network), which includes timetables, maps, journey planners - and absolutely no hint that you’re only looking at half the network.
But, of course, you could end up with First Kernow’s information. When I got to Penzance, I found my 72-year-old mother (who, like me, doesn’t drive) was using her copy of the “Cornwall Local Bus Guide”, printed every year by First. It’s an excellent booklet, with the map and all the timetables. Every year, she picks up her copy from the National Trust visitor centre in Penzance.
This booklet gives no indication that First Kernow now operate only half the network, so she had assumed that the journeys no longer listed no longer exist.
Whether you look at the websites, timetables, posters and maps from either First Kernow or Go Cornwall, you would think you were seeing the complete information for the entire Cornwall bus network. In fact, you’ll only ever see half.
Here’s the bus map provided on the First website for the area round Penzance:
And here’s the bus map provided on the Go Cornwall website for the area round Penzance:
To look at the First Kernow map, you’d believe that New Mill, Nancledra, Towednack and many other villages had completely lost their bus service.
While the Go Cornwall map would tell you that the direct services between St Ives and Helston, St Ives and Lands End and St Ives and Marazion simply don’t exist.
Both maps are comprehensive enough for you to believe that you’re looking at the complete network.
The obvious consequence of this is that, depending on which website or timetable booklet you have come across first, you will attempt to navigate your way across Cornwall using only half the buses available. Remember, because both timetables and websites use language that implies they are the network (and, until last year, the whole thing was one network), most people won’t have any reason to think they’re missing half the information.
The right thing done the wrong way
Let’s look at the route we use more than any other, the service from Penzance to Lands End. This wonderful bus route is the launchpad for endless, magical clifftop walks.
It has emerged over decades from the First 1/1A local route. Once upon a time, this service operated to a horribly unmemorable irregular timetable. Gradually, over the years, First have simplified it so that it now operates a regular hourly service. First have also - gradually - integrated it into a peninsula-wide circular route that now circumnavigates Penwith in a four-hour spectacular, connecting virtually every visitor attraction in the area. And - many years after starting to run some services with open-top buses almost as a secret - it now is flamboyantly branded as the “Lands End Coaster”.
The loser in all of this is the tiny hamlet of Crows-An-Wra (13 houses). To reach Lands End from Penzance, you can either go via Porthcurno (a major visitor attraction with beach, museum and theatre) or via Crows-An-Wra. For many years, the 1/1A alternated, with the result that Porthcurno got half the service of nearby Lands End.
Now the “Lands End Coaster” only runs via Porthcurno, and Crows-An-Wra has vanished from the First Kernow network.
Transport for Cornwall has, very sensibly, stepped in and the tendered Go Cornwall network includes some journeys on the route. But, of course, neither operator acknowledges the other’s existence.
So if you pick up the First Kernow timetable, you think that Crows-An-Wra has entirely vanished. But if you pick up the Go Cornwall timetable, you’ll think that what was previously an hourly service between Penzance and Lands End has been reduced to just three journeys a day.
(Slightly bafflingly, one of the three tendered Go Cornwall journeys runs via Porthcurno and runs exactly 10 minutes behind a First Kernow commercial service).
It’s such a shame, as it should be a superb example of the private and public sectors playing to their strengths. First has created a simple, compelling and very popular route connecting all the local visitor attractions. Transport for Cornwall is making sure that local communities don’t lose out in the process.
The combination of the two of them means that West Cornwall now has an absolutely superb local bus network, with a regular service to even quite small villages.
But I strongly suspect most people have absolutely no idea - as they’re arbitrarily relying on one timetable or the other.
Pricing
In previous years on our visits to Cornwall, we’ve bought a seven-day family pass for First Kernow, costing around £50-60. We could then use virtually the entire Cornwall bus network without having to think any further about it. Perfect.
We bought the same pass this year, but - of course - this year, half the local network has been tendered to Go Cornwall, but no-one has created a multi-operator pass.
The First pass (which now covers only half the network) is still £60 but isn’t valid on any of the Go Cornwall buses.
If we wanted to get the same level of freedom as in previous years, we’d also need to buy seven day Go Cornwall passes. Moreover, they don’t do a family version, which means we’d need two £27 adult passes and two £14 child passes. As we still need the £60 First pass, that means the cost of a week’s family bus pass in Cornwall has gone up from £60 to £142.
£34 million of investment and the effect on my family is a 137% price rise!
Well, it won’t surprise you to learn that we bought the First pass as usual and just resolved not to go anywhere that required use of the Go Cornwall buses. Which felt a bit of a shame given how much has been invested in them.
However, one day, my daughter expressed interest in visiting a reconstructed stone age hut (sorry. I have that kind of daughter…) that was only a few miles from Penzance. I checked and there was an hourly bus service. Great. It was a Go Cornwall bus, but I thought maybe we could buy a ticket just as a one-off.
So I went onto the Go Cornwall website to see how much it would cost.
There was no way of finding out.
The only clue provided was this:
All services have their own distance based fare tables for singles and returns, and fares are capped so you'll never pay more than a day ticket price for a return journey.
I genuinely thought we’d - finally - moved on from the days when bus companies kept their fares a closely guarded secret, but it seems not.
A day ticket is £9 for an adult and £6.50 for a child. So I was being told that a quick short bus ride definitely wouldn’t cost more than £31 for the four of us. Good!!
Of course, if I had nothing better to do with my life, I could have walked to the bus station, waited for an hourly frequency bus and asked the driver what the fare would be. All in order to decide if we wanted to make a short bus ride.
I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that we didn’t go. In fact, we didn’t set foot in a single one of the expensively-procured Go Cornwall buses during our entire stay in Penzance.
Who’s Winning from this?
As my experience of Brighton shows, it doesn’t have to be like this.
Indeed, the thing I find so frustrating, is that I can’t work out who’s winning from this ludicrous situation. It certainly isn’t the customer, but I’m not sure it is either First Kernow or Transport for Cornwall.
I would have thought it would be in First’s interests to explain to people that there are far more buses available than just the ones they operate. People aren’t going to have car-free holidays (or live car-free lives) in Cornwall if the place they want to go isn’t accessible by bus. First operates all the key inter-town connections but many of these will benefit from the village links provided by Transport for Cornwall.
First will win if the network wins.
And I’m simply baffled that Transport for Cornwall are promoting a website that ignores the entire commercial network - i.e. the key links that enables the smaller routes to make sense.
Remember, First Kernow and Transport for Cornwall aren’t in competition - the two networks are (should be!) complementary.
Instead, you’re left feeling rather like the kid of parents going through an acrimonious divorce.
“Mum, can’t you just talk to Dad a bit?”, “Mum, I’d find it so much easier if you’d just agree to a multi-operator pass", “Dad, maybe you could at least mention that Mum exists on your timetables?”, “Mum, maybe your website should cover the whole service and not just part of it?”
But, instead, they just pretend the other isn’t there.
I would put good money that the people who’ve created this situation don’t rely on the buses for their own travel. If they did, they’d soon realise that the network they’ve created is unviable for actual customers.
More money than customers
It’s an absolute tragedy.
As you know, we didn’t go on a single Go Cornwall bus service while we were in Penzance. But I peered in at a lot of them, and they were virtually all empty - or very close to empty.
We did travel on the newly introduced First Kernow L5 commercial service from St Ives to Helston and that was also virtually empty. Indeed, many of the “commercial” First Kernow routes we used were empty (for quite a few of them I mean, other than us, literally empty. The Lands End Coaster being the honourable exception).
An almost empty L5 bus between St Ives and Helston. Slightly surprisingly, the bus was called Ray Stenning…
The Cornish bus network is now comprehensive, frequent and uses high-quality buses.
But it’s also under-used.
A joint website, a joint timetable and a joint pass would make a huge difference and wouldn’t cost another £34 million.
I really hope this happens before the otherwise inevitable cuts.
