Friends of DalesBus (FoDB, or Yorkshire Dales Public Transport Users Group) have always regarded the X84 bus route between Leeds, Otley, Ilkley and, until recently, Skipton, as a key bus corridor to and from West Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Dales.
In 2006, when operator First withdrew the Sunday X84 service beyond Ilkley, neither West Yorkshire nor North Yorkshire Councils agreed to support this crucial cross-boundary weekend route. The following year, the Yorkshire Dales Society (now Friends of the Dales) decided to set up Dales & Bowland CIC, Britain’s first-ever not-for-profit Community Interest Company to operate a bus service network. Known as DalesBus, this is now one of the most successful fully integrated bus networks in any UK National Park.
Cuts and closures shrink the X84
The X84 has continued to be an important feeder bus to and from the DalesBus network. But a shock came during Covid when, because of the closure of Skipton High Street on market days and the temporary need to run less-economical single-decker buses under a low bridge, First Leeds bosses took the decision to also truncate the Monday-Saturday X84 service in Ilkley.
Thankfully, Transdev Keighley stepped in to operate the increasingly popular 64 bus between Ilkley and Skipton. Astonishingly, however, no attempt was made to retain connections at Ilkley on the X84, nor to offer through tickets. This raises serious questions about the economic impact on Skipton, a popular market town and visitor destination for the people of West Yorkshire.
Rebranding debacle deepens crisis
But worse was to come. For a period post Covid, thanks to additional government financial support, the service between Ilkley and Leeds ran half-hourly, seven days a week. Then in 2024, without any consultation, First Leeds introduced a disastrous scheme to rebrand the service as 25 (to serve Pool-in-Wharfedale) and 26. Crucially, they also removed the limited stop “X” designation.
This resulted in passengers for Bramhope, Otley, Burley and Ilkley no longer being able to board their bus in the Headingly area, as the buses were packed with short-distance passengers, many of whom were students.
Petitions were initiated and MPs got involved. In panic, the X84 was restored.
A service that no longer serves
Unbelievably, however, this was not the original service, but one that most users now find severely restricted and frustrating, with a timetable that is difficult to understand and manage.
Bus users in this entire corridor of perhaps 50,000 people now have to rely on a weekday service with a frequency of 40-minute intervals on weekdays. Departure times are impossible to remember or understand, especially as the actual times can vary by two or three minutes every interval, thanks to an automated scheduling system that ignores practical realities.
This represents a massive 33% reduction to the previous weekday service. On Sundays, buses have been cut by 50% to reduce the half-hourly service to an hourly service, worsening connections with DalesBus, thereby significantly extending journey times for many people and making DalesBus less attractive.
Longer journeys, higher fares, fewer passengers
In addition, in a self-defeating attempt to cope with the persistent traffic congestion in Headingley, First has now massively lengthened timetabled journey times, even in off-peak hours. Incredibly, it can take up to an hour to travel the 11 miles between Otley and Leeds – slower than cycling.
The journey between Ilkley and Burley-in-Wharfedale can now take 25 minutes instead of the previous 12 minutes, with buses waiting at the bus stops on the main A65 for up to eight minutes, which drivers privately admit is ‘ridiculous’.
PR spin and a failing service
To cap it all, First Leeds have spent possibly thousands of pounds on a promotional leaflet advertising – without any sense of irony – their marvellous new ‘fast’ bus service. This has been distributed to households along the corridor.
In reality, this is a bus service run to maximise profits by reducing the service to an absolute minimum. This, in order to minimise costs and cram passengers onto those services that do operate. But reliability is no better, with services frequently cancelled or running between 15 to 30 minutes late. Those who have the option of travelling by car or taxi are rapidly abandoning this inadequate service, leading to ever-worsening traffic congestion and delays.
Yet the huge new luxury housing developments along the corridor in communities such as Burley and Bramhope, all designed around multiple private car ownership, will press people to use cars more and more, as they shun an inadequate and increasingly unreliable bus service. It is a cycle of decline, failure and despair over which, sadly, a single operator currently has a monopoly.
Call for politicians to heed passenger needs
What can be done? The Friends of DalesBus are calling on the mayor of West Yorkshire and also local MPs and councillors to intervene, and to listen to the passengers, not the bus company. FoDB wants to see the 30-minute daytime bus service restored seven days a week, but with proper integration at Ilkley with onward services to Skipton and Keighley. This would also restore much-needed Sunday connections with DalesBus.
The best option would be to restore the through buses to Skipton or, if that is not feasible, then perhaps restore the extended Keighley Bus service 62 to Otley to provide a more reliable and dependable service between Ilkley and Otley – a key corridor. This would be more predictable than the X84 that is stuck in Headingley traffic jams. Why not revitalise the X85, which gave Pool residents a much-needed direct link to Leeds a few decades ago?
Local leaders urged to step in as services decline
Such decisions cannot be left to the operators. It may be another three years before bus services are franchised in West Yorkshire – and West Yorkshire Mass Transit will take another decade to be delivered. Transport chiefs and politicians should act now to force First to provide a service that meets the needs of local communities, not distant shareholders, and not just along the X84 corridor but in other parts of West Yorkshire too.
Unless local buses can be made attractive, inexpensive, and above all reliable, people will not only continue to use their cars, but former public transport users will also switch to cars and taxis in increasing numbers, creating more and more congestion and pollution, at huge cost to both the environment and the economy. Traffic congestion costs the UK economy and all of us billions of pounds, compared to which, subsidies for decent public transport are a pittance.
Long-term answers need bold leadership
In the longer term, some form of congestion charge or workplace parking charge, such as is imposed in Nottingham and in many mainland European cities, is needed to prioritise public transport over private cars. The predictable backlash from car drivers – who can come across as quite selfish – must be challenged, even if it provokes resistance from those reluctant to change. The car lobby, in West Yorkshire at least, has prevented such measures from being implemented, except by stealth. But the environmental and economic impact of climate change could soon shift that.
In the meantime, our politicians must have the courage and vision – across party loyalties – to use all legal and fiscal means to ensure that people who help safeguard the future of the planet by using public transport, or simply have no other choice, are not treated with cynical contempt by the international corporations that now run most of our local bus services.
