Hulleys of Baslow: Concern as operator of Sheffield to Peak District buses announces it will 'cease trading'

Derbyshire Council has announced changes to services after the operator Hulleys of Baslow said that it would cease trading on Wednesday.

The authority has announced new operators to take over some of the routes - but there concerns over the future of some of its services, which had been operated commercially.

Derbyshire Council has announced that the 257 Sheffield to Bakewell Service will be run by Linburg Coach Travel.

But no announcement has been made on firm’s 271/272 buses, which connect Sheffield to Castleton. It is understood First also operate some buses on the route under contract with Derbyshire.

Derbyshire Dales District Coun, Peter O’Brien, said Hulleys have been operating bus services for over 100 years, and have been one of the fixtures of daily life for thousands of residents in and around the Peak District.

He said: “I know that Hulleys had their problems with reliability, but there are still a great many residents who have relied on their services to take them into Bakewell or Sheffield. And the 257 also provides an essential link between the villages of Baslow, Calver, Stoney Middleton, Eyam, Grindleford, Hathersage, Bamford and Yorkshire Bridge.”

He said he had asked MP John Whitby, and East Midlands Mayor Claire Ward, to address the situation with the utmost urgency.

Derbyshire Council says seven supported bus services will be run by different operators.

They said services were put out to tender following poor performance by the previous operator.

The operator, Hulleys of Baslow, announced this week that they were to cease trading with effect from Wednesday, March 26.

The new operators are:

110/111 – to be run by Ashbourne Community Transport.

172,173,178 – to be run by Andrew’s of Tideswell.

63 – to be run by Stagecoach Yorkshire.

257 – to be run by Linburg Coach Travel.

All four services will start on Thursday, March 28, and the timetables will remain the same.

Hulleys also ran a number of commercial services. The council says it does not have a formal role in finding new operators for these services as they are privately operated and run and have to be registered with the Traffic Commissioner.

But it says the council will support residents in finding alternative travel options in the meantime, but hopes these services can be picked up soon by new operators.

Derbyshire County Council’s executive director for place, Chris Henning, said: “We were sorry to hear that Hulleys are to cease trading this week, both for the company and its employees but also the many residents and communities their bus services visited. We have done all we can over recent months to support them through a very challenging period.

“We have been concerned about the reliability of their services for some time and took the decision a few weeks ago to find other operators for the ones that the council pay for, in the hope that this would enable them to concentrate on their commercial services. Sadly this has not turned out to be the case.

“We are pleased that we have new operators for our services and are hopeful that the commercial routes they ran will be picked up very soon. We also hope that the rest of our local bus companies will be able to offer jobs to those employed by Hulleys.”

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