00:00I think it's a huge win for all the people who live in Peel and in St John's and in Foxdale and in Castle Town.
00:08It's a really important service that connects the whole of the south of the island to the west of the island,
00:14importantly connects the west of the island into the airport,
00:17and then provides the added bonus of being able to connect Craigneach and the Howe and the sound back into the bus network together.
00:25There was a Service 8 that used to come down, it didn't come this far at all,
00:30and then post Covid we reinstate there was a service that was designed to support hospitality and to get people moving between the south and Peel.
00:38And it was a bit sporadic about the timing and it was difficult to staff as well because bus driver numbers were quite low.
00:44So it was one of those things where it started dropping off the timetable and then when you looked at the data for it,
00:49people didn't really support it because you didn't trust the bus was going to run.
00:52Whereas this is an hourly service, it's seven days a week and it will run right the way through the year as well.
00:57So I'm hoping that it just becomes part of our regular network service and that people will treat it like that and rely on it.
01:04And there's huge advantages, we spoke to somebody up in Peel who said his mother travels into Douglas
01:08and then gets another bus down to Castle Town and the journey takes her two and a half hours.
01:12But actually this bus is going to take that journey time, it's less than half the journey time for her to go and see relatives at the age of 84.
01:20I think that's probably the sort of service you want.
01:23So yeah, massive advantage for the people in Peel to be able to come in and out to the airport and to get to Castle Town.
01:28But also a huge advantage for the people from the south that want to travel out to the west.
01:32It's always like this in the south.
01:34It is a fantastic opportunity for everyone to come down to the Sound, Craigneesh.
01:39Great that it's linking up Peel, the airport run from Peel through to the airport.
01:44And then bringing people down through Port Arryn, Port St Mary and down here to Craigneesh in the Sound.
01:48The thousands of visitors that we get down here, now you can access it again by bus. Fantastic news.
Be the first to comment