Clwyd West MS Darren Millar has welcomed news that the Llandegla bus service, which was scrapped 11 days ago, is to be reinstated.

Earlier this month, Arriva announced that they would no longer be serving the village of Llandegla after reviewing its timetable and service provision in North Wales due to the new speed limits introduced by the Labour Welsh Government.

Residents were up in arms over the changes to the X51 service and Darren, along with local Cllr Terry Mendies, raised it with the First Minister during his visit to rural Denbighshire.

Darren also registered his strong objections to the changes directly with Arriva and raised the matter in the Senedd, when he called on the Welsh Government’s Deputy Minister with responsibility for transport to make a statement on “the action he is taking to address the adverse impact of the reduction in the default speed limit in built up areas from 30mph to 20mphh on bus services”.

He is therefore delighted to have received an email from Denbighshire County Council this afternoon stating that the service is to be reinstated.

The Council have had approval from all North Wales authorities to use a portion of this year’s Bus Transition Funding to assist with the change made to this service.

Arriva have agreed that they could operate the first and last journey of the X51 in and out of Llandegla, and Denbighshire Council can now look at providing a temporary minibus to run the timetable in between.  

Welcoming the news Darren said:

“Residents of Llandegla will be thrilled that a solution has been found and that this service will resume.

“This service is a lifeline to many and I am pleased that this has been recognised.

“Obviously it is a concern that the service will run until May 31st only, when there will be a further review of services. I will be pushing to ensure that when this review takes places, the genuine concerns that I raised on behalf of residents will be fully considered and that this service will continue indefinitely.”