A new bus service was launched to serve residents in Calverton and surrounding villages over the weekend.
The new service is just one of a number of changes to services that were introduced over the weekend across Nottingham City Transport’s (NCT) network.
As well as a extended bus service, several bus numbers have also been changed across the borough.
Here are the changes impacting passengers across the borough.
Sky Blue 45
Sky Blue 45 will become Sky Blue 60.
There is no change to the route, but some early morning journeys on Mondays to Saturdays are re-timed.
NCT Said the renumbering of the service helps free up service numbers for future network opportunities.
Sky Blue 46, 47
Sky Blue 46 and 47 are replaced by new Sky Blue 61
Sky Blue 61
New Sky Blue 61 replaces Sky Blue 46, 47, which will also serve Calverton.
NCT said the current circular services have been prone to reliability issues and apologised to customers for the inconvenience and delays they’ve experienced.
New Sky Blue 61 will follow the same route in both directions, replacing the current circular arrangement that was in place. This simplifies the service in Woodborough, Lambley and along Spring Lane with buses to Nottingham picking up from the same stop all the time, instead of being on different sides of the road depending on the time of the day.
All buses will operate from City to Mapperley, Mapperley Plains, Spring Lane, Gedling Country Park, Lambley, Woodborough and then to Calverton.
The extension to Calverton follows discussions with Nottinghamshire County Council and responds to customer requests for improved daily links between Lambley and Woodborough with Calverton.
Buses will run every 30 minutes on Monday to Saturday daytimes and every 90 minutes in the evenings and on Sunday daytimes.
In Calverton, buses will use Bonner Hill, right Bonner Lane, left Park Road, left Crookdole Lane, left Mansfield Lane to terminate at St Wilfrid’s Square. Buses will then return to Nottingham along left Main Street, right Bonner Hill.
Calverton will be covered by the £2 Single Fare cap and will also be in NCT’s Outer Zone, with Easyrider Further passes offering unlimited travel on Sky Blue 61 and all NCT buses in Nottingham for £28.30 a week or £102.50 a month (31 days).
The poorly used section of route along Bank Hill and Mapperley Plains (Travellers Rest, Coppice Road Top) will no longer be served.
David Astill, NCT’s Managing Director said: “Passenger numbers have bounced back to levels similar to pre-pandemic, and we are pleased to announce these further improvements which we hope will maintain the momentum in ridership growth that has occurred over the last three years.
“With these enhancements to the West Bridgford, Mapperley and Ilkeston Road services, we are again able to offer ‘turn up & go’ frequencies which we know our customers love. Our fantastic team of drivers on these routes look forward to welcoming aboard many new faces as well as our valued and familiar ones“
Very pleased about this, I can now walk to Calverton via Dorket Head and catch the bus back to Mapperley Top, which would have been too much for me to walk there and back.