It’s just over five weeks until people in Golborne get a much improved bus connection to Newton-le-Willows, with the launch date now confirmed for the new 612 service.
As Lowton and Golborne News told you back in March, a new bus route is on the way for Golborne, though back then we did not know the start date. But we’re now able to confirm that it will start running on Sunday, 6 September, creating a new link between St Helens, Earlestown, Newton-le-Willows, Golborne and Wigan.
For Golborne, that means a much-needed additional direct connection to Newton-le-Willows train station – something that has been a long time coming, with the current bus options between the two towns limited and infrequent.
The 612 will operate every half hour during the day from Monday to Saturday, and hourly on Sundays. The first services of the day during the week will call at Golborne High Street at 5.11am (headed towards Newton station) and at 5.17am (headed towards Wigan).
The last bus of an evening from Newton Station back to Golborne will be at 10.45pm, seven days per week.
The full timetable for the new service is not yet available online, but we can exclusively reveal the proposed timetable, which you can download here. We don’t know if it will change at all before the service begins, so it’s best to check the Bee Network website closer to the time.
Also starting from 6 September, the 34 service which links Lowton and Newton-le-Willows will be increased to every 30 minutes during the daytime, Monday to Saturday. The route remains unchanged, running between St Helens and Leigh via Fingerpost, Broad Oak, Earlestown, Newton-le-Willows train station, Newton Road in Lowton, and Leigh Bus Station. Timetable from 6 September here.
The launch date lines up with a bigger change locally. St Helens is bringing in its own bus franchising system from 6 September, the equivalent of the Bee Network that already operates across Greater Manchester, and the new 612 has been timed to coincide with that.
There’s also confirmation on the 360, which had been the subject of some speculation earlier in the year. The route, which runs between Golborne and Warrington via Newton-le-Willows, will continue unchanged, so people relying on that link to Warrington will not see any disruption. The timetable for the 360 can be seen here.