New bus services to Leamington

Warwick University and Warwick Students’ Union (SU) are expected to announce a second round of improvements to student bus services, this time on routes to and from campus and Leamington, beginning in September for the next academic year, the Boar understands.

Details of the improvements, which are set to be announced by the University at the end of this term (Week 10), are expected to confirm an extension of their partnership with Travel de Courcey to the Leamington area. This is being done in cooperation with Stagecoach, the main bus provider for students based in Leamington and Warwickshire.

The key points behind the new services are that there will be several ‘express’ buses taking students to Rootes Hall on campus from both the Parish Church and Upper Parade bus stops in Leamington in the morning between 09:15 and 12:30. A similar one-way service will operate in the evening between 18:00 and 18:45 in the opposite direction. A single will cost £1.30 and a return will cost £2.10. A ‘multijourney’ ticket of 10 journeys will be available for £10 and travel cards may also be phased in.

University Transport Manager Graham Hine insisted that this was a “relief service”, and the De Courcey buses would not be in “direct competition” with their Stagecoach counterparts. This appears to be substantiated by the agreement between all three parties to a pilot scheme that means ‘Unirider’ pass holders can pay £1 for a discounted single trip on the De Courcey services; an acknowledgment by Stagecoach that they do currently struggle with demand at peak times.

SU President Daniel Stevens, the driving force behind the Leamington and Coventry bus service improvements, spoke of his delight about the fact the proposals will finally materialise. “Since we had the first discussions with the University [about bus arrangements] … we wanted to target Leamington. Stagecoach have definitely been providing inadequate services and have been completely unresponsive … we sent a document to them containing a student petition and over 120 complaints – they didn’t even acknowledge that they had received the email.”

Future plans for the University and Travel de Courcey remain expansive. Some ideas being mooted are infrequent but scheduled bus services to Birmingham and Oxford, aiming to cater for a growing and increasingly diverse student community.