Vault woes among other things. With the recent failure on St James Parade, Bath may be approaching the vault collapse horizon.

Manvers Street sounds to be going to be completely closed for this work, something that is going to be challenging for the people using buses/trains (and the companies trying to provide a service...).

Mark

https://www.bathecho.co.uk/news/community/six-month-rebuild-manvers-street-begin-may-116876/

 
Interesting the article mentions concrete slabs added in 1940s.   Manvers Street had a tram route until 1939 so wonder if these slabs were part of its track removal and replacement.

Of course with those big rotary diamond saws that fit on front of large bobcat machines, can probably cut the road surface into manageable size pieces in couple of days.  That leaves 5.9 months to remove it and lay new stronger road
...... But as this is a Council run job, it will probably be couple of blokes doing odd bits of work between sitting in their van having long tea breaks which explains the timescale

 
https://www.mtug.org.uk/ruh.html



Except ... the start date has been pushed back 12 days - I have just heard and will be updating!

 
Wondering if your leaflet, regarding the arrangements for the buses, has a scoop. Also thinking that even the walk from the station to the Guildhall isn't brilliant from the accessibility perspective, but what's a city to do...

Mark

 

It's been in the Favesaver x31,228,231,271/2/3 online timetables for about 3 weeks, but that's not somewhere most passengers look very often.     Our MTUG timetable that covers all Melksham buses, trains and coaches has gone to the printers with it included.  But we are first to publicise its more widely; Faresaver will have a shorter and sharper campaign starting at the beginning of next month.  Bath City council have been able to shorten the planned closures by overlapping then and have come to the (belated?) attention of the hospital and train connection issue to service coming in along Lodon Road,

The RUH is the main major hospital for Chippenham, Corsham, Melksham, Bradford-on-Avon and Trowbridge and the Wiltshire Council bus team are aware of the issue and we have messaged about it.  Trowbridge and B-o-A can use the D1 which still goes to the bus station.   And you'll note MTUG has a web page that can be updated, and has suggested that people follow us on Facebook where we will update too. 

 

Perhaps the ideal time to reroute utilities so tram tracks can be relaid at a future point ;-)

 
May 2nd. Checking the bus company web sites, Faresaver, yes. Other bus company sites, with regards to this major work, still  tumbleweed.

On the plus side, though I've not checked if they've been installed: there was a delivery of new seating to the bus station, hopefully to replace the seating that was removed/broke. Most of the missing seating is at the end served by buses to the hospital, which turned it into a bit of a tough environment for people unable to stand for long, not ideal.

Mark

 
Asked about arrangements for the Manvers Street closure - the First bus chap who roves the concourse at the bus station knowledgeable on Faresaver's arrangements and the other road closure that's prompted that period of turning the buses round after the Hilton Hotel stop at the city end of Walcot Street. However, he said that First had put nothing out about this yet (and sure enough the board at one end of the bus station that carries paper based service change notices was blank).

On the good side, replacement seating throughout the bus station, including the missing stuff.

Awaiting a bus, it can be said that the advertising tombstones *within* the bus station are a bit of a disaster - apart from being generally in the way - as from some of the seats they block the view of the nearest bus bay making it difficult for seated passengers to see if their bus is ready for boarding. Photo below shows the whole of Bay 3, anticipating the departure of the good ole' Stagecoach 620 to Stroud, the view of said bus obstructed by Gregg's advertisers having chucked a chicken roll in the way.

Mark

 
Two weeks out and First Bristol Bath now have this on their web site.

Mark

Manvers Street and Bridge Street in Bath city centre will be closed from Tuesday 26th May for three weeks. After this, Bridge Street will re-open, but Manvers Street will remain closed until November 2026 for major works to rebuild the road above historic vaults. Services 2, 3, 4, 6/6a/7, 13, 20, D1/D1x, U1, U1N and U3 will be affected.

Due to the long term nature of this closure, we are treating it as a service change rather than ad-hoc diversions. Timetables, app tracking and online Journey Planning data will be updated to reflect the changes.

Revised timetables will be available on our website timetables page soon.
%%FAQ_LIST%%May2026ManversStreet%%

 
More on the city's buses May - November from First Bus now: with the Manvers Street closure there will be far less provision across the city centre, also, will some locations used as temporary terminuses possibly be standing room only, but for buses? Also to be factored in: buses routed via several of the city's traffic pinch points.

https://www.firstbus.co.uk/bristol-bath-and-west/news-and-service-updates/updates/manvers-street-bridge-street-bath-road

I can't find anything on Stagecoach's site about the closure yet. Ditto the big lemon. A couple of weeks ago I dropped CT coaches an email to ask about their plans for this but no response yet. (CT coaches run a minibus or two covering several local authority supported routes).

Mark

 
This, now, from Travelwest.

Mark

https://travelwest.info/on-the-buses/closure-of-bridge-street-manvers-street-bath/

 

Ye gods they could do with a map and connection advice!

 
On the Manvers Street northbound stop - that useful one when leaving the train - the industry seems to be slowly removing its remaining bus services - starting with the 11 to Bathampton. The notice for that *does* have a map but it took me a moment to interpret it as it doesn't show the railway station. Possibly for good reason as the bus will now only stop at the far end of Dorchester Street, so, Number 11 bus passengers who've been on a train - "Welcome to Awkwardsville".

There's also, now, the 'Notice' version of that web page which is mapless - but in common with their web page on this forthcoming disruption, a map would illustrate the extent to which the bus network is disrupted and exactly how much walking people will need to do to make connections. (Both below...)

Stars of the show is Stagecoach's 620 bus, which continues to run to the bus station albeit via a diversion - and usefully stops at a couple of stops on the diversion too - as does the 700 that runs a very occasional service to the decidedly poor area surrounding Julian Road and also the prosperous part of the city up at Sion Hill.

Mark

 
For the next six months in Bath, how are faciilities being provided for personal needs breaks for bus staff on the routes affected, anyone?

Mark

 

The period of maximum disruption from these works kicks off tomorrow, with a forecast temperature of 31°C which rather increases the general concern for staff operating the services and also people catching buses at the stop for outbound services in Walcot Street that doesn't exactly have much shade or seating. There's going to be a call for a welfare station there.

(Being in a bowl, city centre temperatures are likely to exceed the forecast temperature).

Mark

 
The bus station has a 'Service updates' board.

Today, here's the sum total of information about tomorrow's impending disruption to bus services - i.e. none.

(If they're too small to read, the smaller notice is about a diversion on Combe Down that finished before the weekend, the other gives details of additional services to a racecourse meeting - those being allowed to use the well positioned stop in Manvers Street closest to the racecourse.)

Checking the First Bus bus app, it's refusing to start successfully at all, just producing a purple screen - which is a, erm... first for that app.

Mark

 
Day one. The bus station board still has no information, the display screens at the west end of the concourse switched off. A small thing, but the 700 that's still booked to serve the bus station went past and headed out on its route without calling - and what might have been a First bus + full passenger load to Trowbridge via Bathford, on exiting the bus station, the driver out of habit turned right instead of left and would have had to do a three point turn outside the railway station.

The amount of traffic heading into Dorchester Street surprised me, but then I found a diversion sign in connection with other road works has not been removed and directs traffic into Dorchester Street (now a no through road).

Outside the bus station, an intending passenger talking with the gaggle of bus drivers there and I heard the word 'Melksham' - said drivers had no information, but sent him in the direction of that road - Ambury - that many people couldn't point to on a map - saying 'Ask again there'. I intercepted him and pointed him at the Hilton - which he knew well as he'd actually alighted there earlier but hadn't twigged that the Faresaver buses were turning there - and hadn't absorbed any information on the changes to the services.

Also... the bridge strike at {insert location of usual suspect at Limpley Stoke}. Four coaches at the north end of the Manvers Street blockade bravely set off towards the station and then had to do a group 'U' turn in limited space and among heavy pedestrian traffic. Not ideal. Rumours on the street was that these were contracted to GWR to cover for the closed line to Westbury but I'm not sure they weren't simply tourist buses heading away from Bog Island to their layover location - there being no signage on the right turn from the exit to bog island that Manvers Street is closed - and the first bit of it is open to provide access to that silly car park in front of St Johns Church.

But... it wasn't just the public transport... within an hour, two delivery artics turned up badged 'Marks and Spencer' and one in particular needed most of the forecourt in front of Bath Spa Station, including the pavement, to turn. Fortunately he had an impromptu banksman for this otherwise the station building might have been more at risk of losing another gable + the supporting structure.

All this causing some very poor hangrydriving from a minority of the motoring fraternity so a good day to take additional care on the roads here.

Up at the bottom of Walcot Street - the temporary terminus for Faresaver buses, a bit more calm - though with several buses waiting, not much road space.

The world's notorious for not working the way I expect it to, the people on the ground working the barriers were treating the confusion as god given - or rather, they were saying, with a certain satisfaction in one case "We just implement what the council tells us to put in place" - with the general impression that at during day one there's no mechanism to gather feedback as to what can be improved so *that* can be put in place for day two (and the next six month). But perhaps there is - let's see.

Mark

 
Big "thank you" for that report, Mark ... which I have shared onto Facebook / MTUG group to let people have a further idea and note.  It's always difficult to reach a full customer base - especially where you have a whole series of operators each dealing with their own services / customers without there being a single easy authoritative source.

First Bus do have an update at https://www.firstbus.co.uk/bristol-bath-and-west/news-and-service-updates/updates/manvers-street-bridge-street-bath-road which includes a map and details / links for each of their services.

 

Ah, that page from First has been augmented on the fly,  it's now gained maps.

I hear what you say about it being difficult to reach everyone - and Faresaver did start putting something out earlier than did anyone else.

The scale of this justified a staffed information desk at Bath Bus Station though - there's been no information provided  there about the alterations prior to the day the disruption began. First's drivers haven't been issued with an overview of things either so aren't able to effectively answer enquiries from customers as to how to use the revised bus network.

(There's something to be said for a sort of accessible 'Petit Train' service in cities like this one, but empowered to use pedestrianised areas and skewed to transport rather than tourism...)

From an accessibility point of view, the provision overall is poor - there will be users of the services who are unable to walk half a mile between bus stops and no advice has been given on workarounds. There really needed to have been buses additional to the usual network to bridge some of the gaps  in the network which will be there for the next six months.

Mark