Fulwood bus service 23 cut short due to consistently severe delays

A major bus route serving a well-populated area of Preston has been cut short.

Preston Bus service 23 will only operate from the city centre and terminate at the new Aldi across from Sherwood Way during the week at evening peak periods.

The disruption has fallen into place with immediate effect, meaning that the route serving the rest of Oliver’s place to Asda will not operate at 4.30pm – 6pm on Monday to Friday.

This latest cut is due to ‘extreme congestion’ in the Oliver’s Place and Pittmann Way area.

Preston Bus reports that traffic has caused buses to take up an hour to travel from the Royal Mail sorting office to Asda – a stretch that is less than a mile long.

As a result, severe delays have resulted in other passengers being left stranded at bus stops along the route with one incident seeing up to five buses ‘stuck’ in the congestion while passengers.

A spokesperson for Preston Bus said: “It is with deep regret that due to extreme congestion in the Oliver’s Place/Pittman Way area, services from the City Centre will terminate at the above location. A free shuttle bus will operate between Asda and Aldi to allow passengers to connect onto the main service.

“Over the past few weeks, it has regularly been taking up to an hour for buses to travel from the Royal Mail sorting office to Asda, causing severe delays for all passengers on the rest of the route.

“We have experienced up to five buses ‘stuck’ in the congestion while passengers further along the route are left waiting for long periods of time.

“Preston Bus sincerely apologies for the incovenience that this will cause, however please understand that we have been left with little choice but to take this course of action.

“While there is no obvious cause of this traffic, we believe an excessive number of vehicles accessing the road network at the same time, coupled with recent development in the area and a lack of bus priority have contributed. We will be engaging with Lancashire County Council on an urgent basis to work towards a solution.

“In the meantime, we would like to thank passengers for their patience.”

Preston Bus services 5 and 15 will continue to operate as normal, but severe delays are highly likely says the operator.