The demise of Runcorn’s only express bus service to Liverpool has been slated by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram as another example of why the region’s public transport “needs fixing”.
This Saturday, April 2, the X1 will run its final trips to and from the city centre ending decades of its status as a vital and convenient way to access amenities such as work, leisure, education, culture and family visits, including under the route’s former guise as the X5.
Repeated efforts have spared the service the axe in recent years, with Mike Amesbury, Labour MP for Weaver Vale, making a series of interventions to save it. Pressures on the service date back over a decade, and in 2012 Mr Amesbury’s Tory predecessor, Graham Evans, presented a petition to the then-transport minister Norman Baker after the bus stopped running after 8pm or on Sundays from October 2011 onwards.
