Preston Bus route serving Broughton, Goosnargh and Longridge to change hands

A Preston Bus service heading down Lancaster Road Pic: Carl Stein

A bus route serving villages and towns between Preston and Blackburn is to change hands.

Preston Bus has lost the contract to run the 45 and 46 services which run through Broughton, Goosnargh, Longridge, Woodplumpton and onto Blackburn in the case of the 45.

The Vision Bus group, based in Bolton, is to take on the service from March next year.

Commercial director for Preston Bus, Thomas Calderbank, told Blog Preston: “Preston Bus operate the 45 and 46 services on contract to Lancashire County Council. Our contract with the County Council to operate these services expires on 29th March 2025.

“Following a recent tendering process, Lancashire County Council have awarded the contract to another operator and as such we will not operate services 45 and 46 beyond this date. Further customer information will be publicised closer to the time.”

Lancashire County Council said they would not be commenting at this stage and further information would be released about any service changes in the coming weeks.

Vision Bus took to social media to announce their contract win and also about taking on and restoring a number of Chorley-based services.

A spokesperson said: “We are thrilled to announce a large expansion to our Lancashire bus service operations in proud partnership with Lancashire County Council commencing in 2025.

“We are looking forward to being operation of the following services. We will be bringing brand new vehicles to these routes for which plans are well under way and we can’t wait to meet our new customers.”

The firm is bringing back the 115 route between Chorley and Preston, serving Buckshaw, Leyland, Croston and Longton as well as taking on the 117 and 337/347 services between Chorley and Ormskirk/Southport.

Vision has also picked up a raft of Ribble Valley local services including the 3,5,5A,25 and 25A services.

Blog Preston approached Vision Bus for further comment but received no response by the time of publication.

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