Fleet of 20 new red buses to be introduced in Derry at the end of the summer

A new fleet of red buses will be introduced into Derry at the end of the summer, it has emerged.

The Foyle Metro service will be introduced on Monday, September 4, when number of new routes will also come into effect.

The fleet will be made up of 20 new buses, each costing £180,000.

Details of the new service were outlined by senior representatives from Translink at yesterday’s meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Environment and Regeneration meeting, held in Strabane.

Speaking at the meeting, Alan Young, Service Delivery Manager with Translink, said that it had last carried out a review of its provision in Derry ten years ago, adding that the new service was aimed at ‘penetrating new area and enhancing our existing routes’.

One of the routes which will see a change is the existing services which caters for the Fernabbey and Cornshell Fields areas.

The FY13 service caters for passengers traveling from the city centre to Steelstown, Fernabbey, Cornshell Fields, Ballyarnett and Sandbank Park.

However, Translink will now provide two separate routes after ‘taking into consideration the future development at Skeoge’.

Translink has said that the new routes will mean ‘new journey possibilities to schools and health centre from expanding Glenabbey Area’, and ‘enhanced frequency’ on the route with ‘two buses per hour all day’.

The Glenabbey service will also provide an additional link from the city centre to Shantallow and from Carnhill to the city centre twice an hour throughout the day.

An additional two services will be also introduced in the Waterside area, one servicing passengers travelling from the city centre to Knightsbridge then Nelson Drive, with the other providing for passengers travelling from the city centre to Nelson Drive then Knightsbridge.

Two buses will be provided per hour along the route.

Translink are also set to extend existing Strathfoyle service to Eglinton while retaining existing level of service to and from the city centre via the Limavady Road.

Speaking at the meeting, the SDLP’s Angela Dobbins expressed concerns over the lack of bus provision for the Culmore community given the number of new homes recently approved for the area.

“The bus service is under par at the minute,” she said.

Her party colleague, Brian Tierney, said that he welcome the fact that a bus will now be able to take people from the Carnhill area to the Waterside.

However, he did ask Translink to look at a bus service for the Woodbrook area.

Responding, Mr Young said that councillors should make their views known in a consultation expected to start at the end of this month.

He added that there were problems with the Woodbrook due to it ‘being really awkward for a bus to manouvre’ in the area.

“It’s a major headache,” he added.