Truth is often stranger than fiction.
Whilst driving home last week via my normal route, another in the mini - series of surreal events greeted me. It's not so long ago I posted a shot taken in the middle distance of this scene showing the clearence of the old Chatterley station site and trackbed. More recently, this isolated 'country' location but for a huge as yet unoccupied warehouse, has seen two raised bus stop platforms installed either side of the road ... and naturally there's had to be a signalled pedestrian crossing with dropped kerbs added for good measure to give access to the far one to complete matters. On this day, some new lightly planted bus shelters had been deposited, this one of which had obviously had enough and needed a rest.
The peculiarity of all this is the fact that this stretch of road hasn't seen a bus service since Stonier's threw in the towel during the early to mid '80s. Conditions nowadays are such that entrepreneurial operators have become a thing of the past as retrenchment becomes more and more necessary ... neither too have local authorities the ability to fund lightly used services let alone those which will hardly ever be used by anyone.
Being something of a sceptic, I suppose it's been paid for by the developer of said huge warehouse as a 'green' box ticking exercise and as a condition of their planning consent.
Truth is often stranger than fiction.
Whilst driving home last week via my normal route, another in the mini - series of surreal events greeted me. It's not so long ago I posted a shot taken in the middle distance of this scene showing the clearence of the old Chatterley station site and trackbed. More recently, this isolated 'country' location but for a huge as yet unoccupied warehouse, has seen two raised bus stop platforms installed either side of the road ... and naturally there's had to be a signalled pedestrian crossing with dropped kerbs added for good measure to give access to the far one to complete matters. On this day, some new lightly planted bus shelters had been deposited, this one of which had obviously had enough and needed a rest.
The peculiarity of all this is the fact that this stretch of road hasn't seen a bus service since Stonier's threw in the towel during the early to mid '80s. Conditions nowadays are such that entrepreneurial operators have become a thing of the past as retrenchment becomes more and more necessary ... neither too have local authorities the ability to fund lightly used services let alone those which will hardly ever be used by anyone.
Being something of a sceptic, I suppose it's been paid for by the developer of said huge warehouse as a 'green' box ticking exercise and as a condition of their planning consent.