There are "no plans" to bring back a late night bus service that was initially closed due to "low demand".
The Wirral night bus was an extension of the 1 bus service which crosses the water, travelling from Liverpool city centre to Chester, serving Wirral in between. The bus served as an "essential" service for people who needed to get home from the city in the early hours of the morning - such as nurses working late shifts or people enjoying a night out.
In 2019, Stagecoach made the controversial decision to cut the night bus - which was considered a bit of a rite of passage for partygoers - as it was operating at a loss, reducing its stops to those between Liverpool and travelled as far as Bromborough Cross. Then, later, it was axed altogether, with Stagecoach saying "The night buses are not operating for the time being during the Coronavirus restrictions, but we hope to resume them later in 2021."
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But, in 2022 the night bus has still not returned, with people of interest such as Birkenhead's popular music venue Future Yard saying Wirral has been "disconnected" from the city. Stagecoach has since told the ECHO they have "no plans" to resume the service, despite their initial "hope."
Last year, Richard Hughes, a bus driver from Wirral, lobbied to try and bring back the nightbus. Richard's attempts were unsuccessful, though this week he told the ECHO he still believed in the idea.
He said: "You have to go back a few years to when I worked for Stagecoach, and I drove the night bus on the occasional weekend. It was always busy - the one that went from Liverpool to Bromborough village serving Birkenhead - and I thought it was great.
"Then it was finished, for covid and other things. It was still busy until it ended.
"It was always busy, we were always taking money on it, it was always popular because obviously if people wanted to go out they had a way of getting home that didn’t cost a lot of money, like if you’d get a taxi.
"When I left Stagecoach and it ended I took a break from driving buses for a bit and spoke to the guy I started to work for, and told him look, it’s popular, it makes money, no one runs a night service so we’re not stepping on anyone’s toes - so I said surely we can do something.
"Basically, I was told it would take too much to set up. We’d also have to police it at the weekend because of people being rowdy - so then we’d be looking at two lots of wages.
"They didn’t think the economy had recovered enough at the time to produce that sort of service. But I still think we need a night service of some kind - we’ve got students who want to go out, we’ve got so many nurses who work late shifts, or even trying to get to work for early shifts who’ve just got no proper transport.
"It affects a lot of people and it could affect them a lot more. If you look at other cities, like London, they’ve got a 247 transport and it works wonders."
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