'Vital' bus route to Yate returns after community campaign
The service will run 15 times on weekdays and 12 times on Saturdays. Gloucestershire County Council, South Gloucestershire Council, the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) and the local community worked together to bring the route back.Weca holds responsibility for buses in South Gloucestershire as the transport authority.The full timetable will be released in the coming weeks.
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The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Where tourists seldom tread, part 18: three seaside towns that defy the tides of fashion
Tis the season to be beside the seaside – and to hype and critique coastal towns in surveys and rankings. I suppose lists of this year's 'in' and 'out' resorts help tourists decide where to go; no point going to Skegness for Michelin-starred food, or to Salcombe for a laugh and cheap beer. Less obvious coastal towns provide more nuanced fare. Perhaps the most alluring spots are those where we don't forget the sea. These three towns are routinely ranked last resorts or else ignored altogether, but they offer more than stuff to eat, drink, buy and post on socials – and are close to swimmable beaches. A century ago, Clyde steamers and the Glasgow and South Western Railway took thousands of sunseekers from inland towns to the Ayrshire coast. They came to escape the smoke and noise of industry, breathe in the briny air, and admire the Isle of Arran and tiny Ailsa Craig – from afar or up close on an excursion. The bed and breakfasts on elegant Park Circus (a sweeping crescent lined with cherry trees that blossom red on one side and white on the other) and the Georgian villas on Eglinton Terrace evoke something of the golden days of yore. It's easy to imagine parasol-sporting ladies and tall-hatted gents strolling across the Low Green, a large field between the town centre and the beach. This open space – perfect for picnics, kite-flying and impromptu games – and the absence of any clutter on the prom make the seafront unusually peaceful. It's as if Ayr has refused to become a traditional resort. No tat, no tack, not many tourists. There are places to play on swings and get an ice-cream or a pint, but lovers of amusement arcades and bucket-and-spade shops should probably stay away. On the short block beside the Low Green the buildings are mainly residential – including care homes, that standard fixture of coastal towns. The beach is a golden sweep about two miles in length, with the old harbour at the north end. Wharves and quays once bustled all along the River Ayr. By the 14th century, this was Scotland's principal west coast port. In the 18th century, more than 300 ships were moored every year, unloading American tobacco, French wine, Spanish salt, English earthenware and slate from Easdale in the Firth of Lorn. Walk south and you come to the ruins of Greenan Castle, a 16th-century clifftop tower. The sunsets over Arran are life-enhancing. I watched a woman of retirement age do her tai chi moves while keeping her eyes fixed on the island – spiritually separate from the dog-walkers and prom-striders. Robert Burns was born near Ayr and baptised in the Auld Kirk. In Tam o' Shanter he writes: 'Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, / For honest men and bonny lasses'. A lively pub on the high street, which is set back a good mile from the beach, is named after the poem; it claims to be the oldest in Ayr, but so does the Black Bull on the opposite side of the river. The old bridge (or Auld Brig, if you prefer, which inspired another Burns poem) that takes you across is pedestrianised and a beauty. All the old pubs are enticing but I had my most enjoyable, peaceful beer and dram in the Twa Dugs – also named for a Burns poem. In Ayr's Waterstones, I found a long-overlooked 1969 Booker-nominated novel by Gordon M Williams, From Scenes Like These, that provided a brutally realistic riposte to Burns-esque takes on rural Scotland. I read it in the boozers, the caffs, on benches. People in Ayr will tell you the town has declined. They'll tell you that in nine out of 10 seaside resorts. But this column gets me around, and I can vouch for the town's general busyness and good looks. Sedate, somewhat stern, bereft of traditional fun stuff, it's an ideal hideaway for those who want to do beach walks, read or write, and check into small, friendly guest to see and do: Rozelle House Museum, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Culzean Castle and Country Park Bangor, the oldest city in Wales, came second from bottom in the Which? 2025 rankings and absolute bottom in 2024. Perhaps the latter partly anticipated the former. Casually saddle a place with derision and it takes a great effort to shake it off. As the gateway to the island of Ynys Môn (Anglesey), a university town and former royal capital, Bangor doesn't need star ratings or hip amenities. The city's origins stretch back to the founding of a monastery in the early sixth century. A cathedral was later built on the site. For centuries, Bangor was the spiritual and ecclesiastical hub for Gwynedd – a kingdom until the English came a-conquering – but remained a small settlement. Nonetheless, during the first flush of Welsh tourism, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, pleasure steamers from Liverpool brought visitors to see the big church and the wild waters of the Menai Strait. The boom years came after 1826 with the completion of the Holyhead Road, linking London with Dublin – hitched to the recently created UK by the 1800 Acts of Union. The first major civilian state-funded road building project in Britain since the Roman era, the job was given to Thomas Telford. The road (much of it on the same route as today's A5) swept through central Bangor, making the former big village a major staging post, and creating the longest high street in Wales. To replace the ferry-shuttles, Telford's magnificent Menai Suspension Bridge opened in 1826. Two decades later, Robert Stephenson built a tubular bridge to carry the Chester-Holyhead railway across the straits. With communications much improved, Bangor became a proper little port, with shipbuilding, sail making, iron founding, smithing and timber yards, as well as slate yards. Walk to the natural end of this high street – which turns residential – and you come to the shore, a pier and a large park between neo-Norman Penrhyn Castle and the sea. You don't have an in-town beach, which might be why some of the raters have a low opinion of Bangor. But the Wales Coast Path and the railway line link Bangor with beaches at Llanfairfechan and Penmaenmawr, eight and 10 miles away respectively. In fact, this might be the best-connected seaside town in the UK, with Eryri national park (Snowdonia), Unesco-listed Caernarfon Castle and Criccieth and the Llŷn peninsula accessible by bus, and of course Anglesey on the to see and do: walk the Menai Suspension Bridge, kayaking off Caernarfon, Aber Falls Distillery The Cumbrian coast is the most intriguing stretch of littoral in these islands. Backed by the towering, cloud-drawing fells of the national park, the shore is often beneath a blue dome. The towns along it are chapters in British social history. Whitehaven is like a Devon port town without the crowds. Workington is a fascinating ex-industrial town. Nethertown is a hidden hamlet in a spectacular setting. Millom, at the southern tip of the old county of Cumberland, is a stop on the coast-hugging railway line – a superlative train ride – between Barrow-in-Furness and Sellafield. Its main connection to the nexuses of nuclear war and power are the Millomites who commute south and north for work. Millom once had industry; hematite ore (iron oxide) was found at Hodbarrow in 1856 and mined till 1968, the population swelling to 10,000. Much of the land was transformed into an RSPB nature reserve, centred on the north-west's largest coastal lagoon; little, common and sandwich terns breed on the islands and you can see ringed plovers, redshanks, great crested grebes and oystercatchers around the wetlands. Millom is tiny, but has none of the jams and crowds of the villages in the nearby Lakes. The Camra-rated Bear on the Square has real ales, good food and live music. The town has its own fell – Black Combe – and while only a 600-metre Marilyn, its isolation and proximity to the sea make it feel higher. The views from the summit are magnificent – with Blackpool Tower and Scafell Pike visible in clear weather. The poet Norman Nicholson (1914-1987) was born in Millom and spent almost all his life here, shunning metropolitan literary circles and asserting that the much-maligned 'provincial' has more in common with people of other times and lands and consequently 'may be all the more aware of that which is enduring in life and society'. The titles of his books reflect the locale: Rock Face (1948); The Shadow of Black Combe (1978); Sea to the West (1981). St George's church has a stained-glass window designed by Christine Boyce that was inspired by Nicholson's writing. His house is being restored, while Millom as a whole is undergoing a major rebuild with heritage and health projects afoot as well as a 7.5-mile walking and cycling trail. For a swim, head to Silecroft by train (one stop) or on foot (3.5 miles); Haverigg beach, though closer, often has pollution to see and do: Millom Heritage and Arts Centre, Swinside Stone Circle Further information: Visit Scotland, Visit Cumbria and Visit Wales
Times
an hour ago
- Times
‘An Airbnb owner wrote a nasty review of my daughter when she complained'
✉ My daughter and three friends have used Airbnb for four years and received glowing reviews from owners after their stays until this summer, when they rented an apartment in Cala d'Or, Mallorca. When they arrived, the air-conditioning didn't work. The owner couldn't be contacted after 4pm, so my daughter rang Airbnb. It was finally fixed after two sweaty nights, plus long calls to the Airbnb helpline, and Airbnb agreed to a partial refund. Later, the electricity kept tripping and the owner accused them of lying about this to get more money back. Worse still, after they left a fair, balanced review, they were shocked to see the owner's retaliatory review, falsely claiming they had damaged the apartment and left it very dirty, advising other owners to 'proceed with caution' if asked to rent to them. There was no damage to the property and they actually left it cleaner than it had been when they arrived. Fortunately they had taken photos, but despite this, Airbnb refused to remove the defamatory review. Then came the £109 phone bill. Airbnb had given my daughter a US customer service number with no warning and she assumed it was included in her roaming. Despite screenshots, she has been told she doesn't 'fit the criteria' for reimbursement. I am appalled about the way my daughter has been treated and it feels morally wrong to let it go. Can you help?Sarah Dean A. The owner's behaviour was outrageous, and you and your daughter shouldn't have needed my help to get her money back and her Airbnb rental reputation restored. An Airbnb spokesperson said: 'We were disappointed to hear about this experience and want to make it right. We have fully refunded the guest and removed the review as per our policies. While calls to Airbnb's customer service are typically free to use, this guest was charged due to human error and we have offered to reimburse them in full. All bookings come with AirCover, meaning in the rare event of an issue that the host can't resolve, we'll help guests find a similar place or give them a refund.' The apartment is no longer listed on the site. ✉ On July 7 we experienced the disaster area that is the Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord in Paris. As instructed, the four of us arrived at 15.10 for the 17.10 service to London and found ourselves in a scrum of approximately 3,000 people in an area suitable for maybe 500; this was on a day when the temperature was 30C. It was chaos. The flustered staff were desperately attempting to extract those hoping to travel on the (delayed) 16.10 from the mass of people and get them through check-in. But, as the staff admitted, Eurostar is trying to run too many trains without the capacity to process the passengers. There was no alternative but to stand and shuffle forward in the sweltering conditions for two hours. There was no possibility to take a seat and for a group of 70-year-olds, this was completely unacceptable. Surely this is no way to treat paying Barclay A. Unfortunately there's no plan to expand Eurostar's departure area at the Gare du Nord any time soon. The ambitious project to revamp the station in time for the 2024 Olympics was scrapped in 2021 and the only recent improvement to the Eurostar terminal has been the addition of an extra 100 seats. Eurostar said it was sorry to hear about your experience in the July heat, and that passport and security checks carried out by the French authorities and the station's security provider can take additional time during peak periods due to the high volume of passengers being processed. It added that it was continuously looking at ways to 'improve the customer journey in these high-demand conditions'. A spokesperson said: 'Water refill points are available at Gare du Nord and we encourage customers to speak to a member of staff if they need any further assistance. Our teams will do their best to help.' Of course you could upgrade to Eurostar Premier, which comes with lounge access, to avoid the crush but a one-way ticket starts at about £245 ( ✉ My friend and I want to visit Lucca in Tuscany in the autumn as a birthday treat. My friend also wants to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa so we thought maybe a day there first. How easy is it to travel on public transport between the two and can you recommend any reasonably priced hotels in both places?Christine Marks A. That's a great plan. Lucca is still relatively uncrowded in the autumn (especially compared to hotspots like neighbouring Florence and Siena) and it's easily reached from Pisa; the train journey takes less than 30 minutes. In Pisa stay at the cosy B&B Relais dei Mercanti, a ten-minute walk from the tower and in a quiet street but in the middle of everything; B&B in a standard double starts at £106 at the beginning of October ( Timed tickets to the tower start at £17pp and you mustn't be late ( In Lucca it's fun to stay inside the well-preserved Renaissance-era city walls; on top there's a wide tree-lined path that's ideal for burning off pasta lunches. The comfortable San Martino hotel, near the cathedral and the station, has a quirky history: it's a renovated 1950s brothel where the rooms don't have numbers but the names of the girls who worked there. B&B doubles start at £131 ( ✉ I have a big birthday in August 2026 and want to book a luxury villa in the Mediterranean. We're a party of ten and need at least five bedrooms. I want something with a sea view or within a short walk of a beach, local restaurants and shops. A pool would be a bonus. We have a budget up to £20,000 for the perfect place. Any suggestions?Joan Johnston A. With a budget like that you can afford somewhere special for your bash. In a spectacular setting, with direct access to a beach via a rocky path at the end of the garden, the five-bedroom Beach House is a cool, contemporary, superbly equipped villa overlooking the Gulf of Valinco in southwest Corsica. The elegant interior is open plan and spacious and there's a deck surrounding a large heated swimming pool. You'll find an excellent little restaurant on the beach, with several alternatives in nearby Abbartello, five minutes away by car. A week's self-catering for ten in August 2026 starts at £14,560 ( • 19 of the best holiday villas in France ✉ I'm looking for a health break in the UK that specialises in weight loss. Any ideas?Paul Johnson A. Homefield Grange in Northamptonshire has a mainly female clientele but you will be very welcome on one of its five-night weight-loss retreats, which start at £2,461pp, including treatments, classes and juice cleansing or light plant-based meals ( • 16 of the best wellness retreats in the UK Have you got a holiday dilemma? Email traveldoctor@
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Backlash as travel operator tells Everton fans 'get your steps in'
There has been backlash from Everton fans after they were told to "get their steps in" by a transport operator and walk about 30 minutes to the club's new ground. Merseytravel has suggested supporters could walk to the Hill Dickinson stadium on Saturday for the friendly against AS Roma from Moorfields station in Liverpool town fans are expected to use Sandhills train station, which is closer to the new ground, but the operator has warned it would be "extremely busy".The suggestion of walking from further out has been met with ridicule online, with some calling it "embarrassing" and a "shambles". The friendly, which kicks off at 15:00 BST, is the final test event at the new ground and will be the first time the 52,769-seater venue will be operating at near full test events at the ground left many fans concerned at the lack of public transport and a parking scheme in streets around the ground has also led to confusion and a post on X Merseytravel said: "Heading to the Everton v AS Roma double-header this weekend? "Everton Stadium is just 30 mins walk from Moorfields station – a great opportunity to get your steps in for the day and soak up the atmosphere for the big game!" 'Only in Liverpool' The suggestion was called into question by a number of people on social media, who described transport issues with the new stadium as a "shambles" and "embarrassing".One person said: "This is all well and good for young people and those who are able to walk long distances. What about those who struggle to walk long distances?"Another said: "Get your steps in as if you're doing us a favour."Others joked: "Just a mere seven-hour walk from nearby Southport railway station", and "A great opportunity to swim across the Mersey"."Only in Liverpool does the travel service tell you to walk," another Director at Merseyrail, Neil Grabham, said a "robust plan" was in place with extra services and staff across the network, adding "customers should expect the network to be very busy on Saturday"."Like train stations near other major football stadiums across the UK, Sandhills station will be extremely busy on matchdays," he said."Customers can help us, to help them, by planning ahead, allowing extra time for journeys, and considering alternative routes in case of unexpected disruption". Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
