Rethinking Lake District transport: Community buses in Ullswater

Frustrated by a lack of sustainable transport in the valley, communities in Ullswater started their own bus service. Two years on, it's thriving.

Words and images: David Felton.

It’s the first Saturday of September. With schools back, the rains recede and sun breaks out with what has become a kind of seasonal inevitability. These summer dog days rarely get lovelier; fells rising heather-purple beneath a hazy blue, thermometer breaking 20.

The shorts and sun cream are out as I board the first 509 service of the day from Keswick bound for Ullswater to explore new public transport routes in and around that loveliest of valleys, and specifically, one of the first community-organised bus routes in the Lakes.

I am interested in why locals in parishes around Ullswater decided the ongoing growth in private vehicles needed tackling; what they chose to do about it; and who drove the change. There were bigger questions at stake, too; could the quiet transport revolution unfolding in this eastern valley hold lessons for other Lakes communities?

The UB1 at the base of Hallin Fell just beyond Howtown; it is the first time this popular location has been serviced by bus.

The 509 swings south through Troutbeck, cresting the brow alongside Mell Fell Wood before dropping to the lake – the view of its lower reaches, crowned by the lofty spires of Helvellyn and Catstycam surely one of the finest in Lakes country. I alight at Dockray and descend Aira Beck’s east bank, where lingering inversion mists thread through oaks, and late-season visitors paddle in beckpools.

At Aira Force car park I transfer onto my second bus of the day: the UB1, a platinum-grey 16-seat (plus wheelchair space) Mercedes Sprinter, a landmark community-supported bus service. It makes its way along the shores of Ullswater before branching left at Knott to visit Ullswater Holiday Park. Continuing on, it stops again at The Quiet Site, where I meet the two men instrumental in bringing this bus to the valley.

The first is Michael Firth of Bennet Head, a retired commercial litigation lawyer and vice chair of Matterdale Parish Council.

What was the catalyst for change? “It goes back to Covid. When we emerged from the second lockdown, there was a huge increase in domestic visits to the Lakes, and the rise in congestion around the valley became steadily more noticeable. In particular, the road to Howtown was often impassable. My view was that something could and should be done.”

Daniel Holder (left) and Michael Firth – the men behind the UB1.

Also sitting on Matterdale Parish Council was Daniel Holder, owner of Watermillocks’ The Quiet Site, a long-time advocate for sustainable tourism.

“We were getting to the end of what we could do at The Quiet Site in terms of sustainability,” says Daniel. “We’ve reduced energy use by 20% over a decade; we generate 80% of the site’s energy needs from renewable sources and we’ve achieved carbon neutral status. But when we sat down and did an energy audit, we realised we’d missed transport. There’s not a huge amount we can do to impact on guests’ travel from home to our site; but we can change how visitors travel around the valley when they get here. If we can empower them to park up and leave cars at the site, that’s an easy carbon win.”

The knotty problem of creating a new bus service appealed to Daniel’s engineer’s mindset. “Before I took on The Quiet Site I trained as an engineer. I like efficient systems and elegant solutions. The transport system in the valley had become increasingly broken, particularly when visitor numbers peaked post-Covid. We experienced regular gridlock between Pooley Bridge and Howtown.

“We believe car numbers will increase over the coming years as the number of staycations increase. If the planned dualling of the A66 goes ahead then we’re the first port of call for those coming from the northeast. We have just six access roads into Ullswater. If you add even more private vehicles to an already stressed system you don’t need much imagination to realise what the future looks like: it’s not pretty and it’s not sustainable.”

Deciding which locations a hypothetical new bus service might serve was informed by targeted market research. “We’ve been surveying visitors for 30 years,” says Daniel, “so we know exactly where they want to go when they’re here, and the list isn’t long. They want to go to Lowther Castle, Aira Force, Helvellyn, the Steamer jetties, Pooley Bridge, Glenridding and Howtown. Very few visitors want to leave the catchment.”

Inspired by the Vision for travel and transport published by local action group Ambleside Action for a Future, Matterdale Parish Council appointed a small working group that included Michael and Daniel to look at sustainable transport issues in the valley. 

They realised that to achieve anything meaningful they needed buy-in from the wider Ullswater community. “We couldn’t do anything alone,” recalls Michael, “so the first step was approaching other parishes.” These initial meetings gave birth to SITU (Sustainable and Integrated Transport for Ullswater), with a vision to build a “sustainable and integrated transport system for the Ullswater valley to benefit residents, local businesses and visitors”.

So far, so easy.

But there have been plenty of earnest conversations – and plans – crafted around pub tables over many years seeking to tackle Lakeland’s endemic transport challenges.

But Ullswater is not just a valley of fresh thinking. It is one of practical action – where Danny and Maddy Teasdale have forged a game-changing partnership helping farmers to restore biodiversity and slow the flow; where James Rebanks’ shift to nature-friendly farming has inspired change in farming practices worldwide; and where the community joined forces with the National Park to create the Ullswater Way post-Storm Desmond to rebuild the fabric (and finances) of a flood-damaged valley.  

So it was that one of SITU’s earliest practical steps was to get a new generation of buses on the road. 

Engine for change

The first community-supported bus left Ullswater Holiday Park on 1 July, 2023.

It marked the end of a period of research, planning and negotiation. The chosen business model was a partnership between SITU and the private transport provider Stagecoach.

In the initial trial period, three new routes – the UB1, UB2 and UB3 – were created that ran on weekends and bank holidays between July and October.

Stagecoach provided the buses and drivers, and they collected fares from customers. SITU, meanwhile, raised funds to pay for the estimated shortfall in revenues that would otherwise make a route commercially unviable. Which at its most basic means that if a route costs £100,000 a year to service, and commercial income from fee-paying passengers only brings in £60,000; then SITU is expected to cover the £40,000 shortfall.

In year one of the project, SITU, working in collaboration with the Barton & Pooley Bridge Community Fund, raised £32,500 of grants from various funding bodies, including the National Lottery Community Fund, Zero Carbon Cumbria, Cumbria Action for Sustainability and Westmorland & Furness Council.

In year two, to ease the services onto a more sustainable footing (“the outcome of grant applications is uncertain and they require a lot of work,” says Michael), SITU asked local businesses to make financial pledges to fund the bus services. That pledged money is only drawn down to cover any post-fare shortfall. “We’ve now got 30 businesses from the valley – which is pretty much all of them – pledging between £50 and £5,000 each,” says Daniel. Such was the success of the ‘24 season that less than 30% of pledged shortfall funding was required.

The next potential bump in the road was smoothed by the two-way relationship with local business. “There was no point in introducing new bus services if visitors know nothing about them,” says Michael. So it was that with the new UB1, UB2 and UB3 shuttling around the lake – and beyond – the team at SITU embarked on a major publicity drive. “We were helped by the fact that we were supported by so many valley businesses. They were putting up posters in campsites and spreading information about the service in communications with customers; it gave us a standing start.”

“And because so many of those businesses had made financial pledges to cover fare shortfalls,” adds Daniel, “it was in their interests to market the bus. Effectively, they each have a stake in the business.”

Traveller numbers for SITU’s first year exceeded predictions. Between 1 July and 29 October, 2023 (weekends and bank holidays only) the bus carried 1,157 passengers. As such, around £19,000 of the ’23 seed grant money could be carried forward into the 2024 season, where lessons from year one prompted an overhaul of services.

2024: All change

The first major change in 2024 – and a huge win for SITU – was Stagecoach choosing to incorporate the former UB2 route into the new (and now regular) 509 bus service from Keswick to Penrith via Dockray. Having seen the success of the UB2, the operator offered to take over the route with a much smaller financial contribution from SITU. The addition of the 509 route meant the original UB1 and UB3 services could be consolidated into a new-generation UB1 service, operating four times a day between Aira Force and Howtown via Pooley Bridge. 

And… so far, so good. Between 23 March and 3 November, 2024 the UB1 carried 3,669 passengers and the 509 5,713 – a total of over 9,300 passengers. It is estimated that around 1,400 car journeys have been saved. Nor is the service just used by tourists; although around 85% of customers are visitors to the valley, 15% are locals.

Map showing the routes of the UB1 and 509 bus services around Ullswater.

A sustainable bus-iness?

Two years into the extended trial of new community bus services in the Ullswater Valley, the small team at SITU are realistic about the challenges facing community transport in the valley.

Firstly, there is an acknowledgement that the UB1 service cannot be financially viable without top-up funding: in 2023, around £12,000 was needed to subsidise the services, and in 2024 the figure was around £30,000 for the longer season. Fortunately the emerging business model – with local business making up the fare shortfall – appears stable enough, with many businesses pledging continued support for 2025.

But the reality is that even exemplar public transport services are often not self-financing. “If you look at the funding model for Transport for London – which runs the capital’s bus and train services,” notes Daniel, “it spends between £10 billion and £10.5 billion a year. Less than half of that comes from fare income. If they can’t make a profit with their millions of daily journeys, then it’s unlikely we will, either.”

SITU is exploring other funding models to ease the burden on local businesses, but has yet to find one that meets local needs. A possible model used in Manchester’s Accommodation Business Improvement District (BID) is a per-night charge on visitors. Such a charge in Ullswater could help finance sustainable transport. The difficulty with a BID, explains Daniel, is that contributions are made depending on a business’s rateable value, “which would be difficult given the variety in business rates, levels of profitably and the number of unregistered Airbnb properties in the valley that pay no rates”.

A model for other valleys?

“The secret to the success of our buses has been buy-in from both business and communities,” notes Michael. “If other valleys are able to secure both of those, then what we have done here is replicable.”

Taking a macro view of the Lake District National Park, the Authority itself is hampered by the fact it is not the transport authority for the Lake District; that role is, instead, fulfilled by the new Cumberland and Westmorland & Furness unitary authorities. This adds a layer of complexity to formulating a unified transport system across the whole Park. “The Glover Review specifically suggested that the Lake District National Park might trial becoming its own transport authority, which could have been game-changing,” says Michael. Frustratingly, Glover’s suggestion – along with the rest of his Landscapes Review – is gathering Whitehall dust.

But those bigger conversations are for another day. “Our aim is to create a sustainable transport offering that works first in Ullswater,” says Daniel. “What we learn here can then be worked into an integrated transport plan governing the Lake District. But we should be clear that in terms of scale and visitor numbers, Ullswater is near-unique. If you look at the whole Lakes network together, it is likely that valleys with more traffic would have to support those with less.”

“The biggest challenge,” continues Michael, “will always be funding. Even in our busy valley, the UB1 is not financially sustainable without top-up funding. In more remote valleys, that problem will be exacerbated.”

Community-led schemes also depend upon committed, driven individuals with time to invest, and not every valley has such people.

For now, though, SITU continues its steady, incremental journey to improve travel in its valley, one bus journey at a time.

“Our approach has been to take single steps and see what works,” notes Michael. “So, the first year was a trial weekend service in the main season. This year was a weekend service from Easter to the end of the October half-term. Next year we’ll trial a seven-day service in July, August and May half-term. In 2026, if that seven-day trial is successful, we’ll extend the season.”

As the UB1 drops its final passengers of the day back at The Quiet Site, Daniel offers an up-beat assessment of the service’s second year in business: “SITU is on the road to joining the successes of James Rebanks, the Teasdales and the Ullswater Way, underlining the fact that there really is something special in the waters of Ullswater.”