A NEW night-time bus service operating between Winsford and Northwich has been a huge success since it was launched in April.

The new Nightlife Express service was launched in April to run on Friday and Saturday evening between 6.45pm and 11.15pm.

It was introduced as a way to allow Winsfordians to enjoy the Odeon cinema at Barons Quay in Northwich and Cheshire West and Chester Council consulted with the cinema management to operate around film times.

Cllr Brian Clarke has now revealed that the service has proven to be a huge success.

He said: “We’re really pleased that people are using the service, because it has to be used if we want to keep it.

“It started off steady with numbers of eight or nine people using each service in the first week or so, but it gradually got more and more and now we have more than 30 regularly per journey. It’s turned into a thriving service in a short period of time.”

Despite the high numbers using the service from Winsford to Northwich, however, Cllr Clarke admitted that the service is not taking many people the opposite way.

Cllr Clarke said: “We don’t have people using the service to go from Northwich to Winsford at the minute, simply because there isn’t anything in Winsford for Northwich people at night time yet. There is nothing to stop people from going the other way though and we’d love to see that happening.”

The Nightlife Express service was introduced after Arriva scaled back its services between the towns in January this year, citing ‘insufficient use’ of the service as the reason.

The new service picks up at Mount Pleasant, Over St John’s, Grange Estate, Winsford High Street and Wharton Road then non-stop to Leftwich (London Road) and onto Northwich Watling Street, a short walk from Barons Quay.