The peril of Beryl

Previously, I wrote an article detailing and praising the Beryl scheme to bring awareness to readers who may not have known about it. However, this year I was disappointed to learn that prices per minute of usage have nearly doubled. This is a shame as before I would have said that Beryl is great value for money, however this will be a noticeable increase in cost especially for regular users.

For comparison, before the price increase a regular user of a pedal bike would have paid £5 for a bundle of 100 minutes. As there is no unlocking fee for a pedal bike, this would have cost them 50p for each 10 minute ride or £1 for a 20 minute ride. Now, it costs £8 for a bundle of 50 minutes, but you get ‘double minutes’ when using a pedal bike (as opposed to e-bike or e-scooter) and therefore would last 100 minutes. So a 10 minute ride costs 80p, or a 20 minute ride £1.60. This price increase is unwelcome in the face of cost challenges that many are experiencing.

The new 6A

Another recent article I wrote was on the new bus route 15/16, which saw a half hourly bus service introduced to Silfield, Wymondham railway station, Ayton Road and Harts Farm estate going to Norwich and beyond. This was great, but as many readers correctly pointed out in the comments of the post on Wymondham Magazine’s Facebook page, it was missing details on the new 6A service by Konectbus. This is because the service didn’t exist until 2nd January whereas I wrote the article in November. It’s great to see how much the frequency of buses in Wymondham have increased in a short period of time.

The 6A runs between Wymondham, Hethersett and Norwich city centre at 10:00-15:00 on weekdays, meaning there is now a half hourly service from the Cross to the city centre by Konectbus in the late morning/early afternoon - this runs in addition to the 6.

Mid-Norfolk Railway

I'm very much looking forward to the return of trains on the Mid-Norfolk Railway on 2nd March, which will run between Dereham and Thuxton. Their emergency appeal to raise funds for repairs to Crownthorpe Bridge is still ongoing - it would be great to have their trains back in Wymondham again.