In response to the Government’s new National Bus Strategy, which aims to make bus services more attractive, cheaper, easier to use, faster, more reliable, and greener, Dorset Council is developing a Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP). The plan will be a collaboration with local bus operators, community groups, business groups, and with passengers themselves.
The council has reviewed the options that Dorset has through the National Bus Strategy. Their preferred approach is to develop an Enhanced Partnership for the council area.
An Enhanced Partnership is an agreement between the council and local bus operators to work together to improve local bus services. It requires an agreed vision of improvements and an action plan that will form the BSIP.
The BSIP will act on five key areas:
- Networks and services
- Fares
- Ticketing
- Passenger facilities
- Bus priority measures
Cllr Ray Bryan, Dorset Council’s Portfolio Holder for highways, travel and environment, said:
“This is the most significant change for bus services since deregulation in 1986. By working in close collaboration with operators and local groups we will develop and deliver an ambitious Bus Service Improvement Plan for Dorset that puts the passenger first, raises further the perception of bus travel, generates mode shift away from private cars, and sees decarbonisation of the local transport fleet.”
The official notice:
By executive decision notice dated 29 June 2021 Dorset Council gave approval to proceed with the development of an Enhanced Partnership. The commencement of this is confirmed through this notice of the intention to prepare an Enhanced Partnership Plan and accompanying Enhanced Partnership Schemes, as required and set out in section 138F of the Transport Act 2000.
As part of the process to develop the BSIP, the council will be talking with community groups, business groups, passengers and the public to collect a wide range of thoughts and ideas which will help to shape the future vision and priorities for our bus network. The BSIP will be published in the autumn.
More details of how to be involved will be published shortly, but you can register your interest by emailing busbackbetter@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
Let’s all push for this to be implemented West of Weymouth for a welcome change?
We need to invest in Bus services from Dorchester south station to Bridport and lyme regis to Axminster station. X51
Weymouth west bay to Bridport. X53
Brdport hospital and bus station to Yeovil bus station service 6 .
New service Bridport bus station to maiden Newton.
Yeovil bus station to Dorchester via A37
A fast X bus from Weymouth & Dorchester to Yeovil would be very welcome.
Surprising as it is,some of us don’t have a car,any improvement would be welcome,to and from rail connections.
We need better and quicker connection with Poole , Wimborne and Bournemouth Also Yeovil and Blandford, with reasonable prices to encourage us to get out of our cars on these longer journeys.
Alderholt to Fordingbridge…only Parish paid community bus runs 3 days a week in the middle of the day. No way to get to and from work without a car, of out at all beyond walking distance. We have just one shop in the village! Some of us don’t drive and I rely on lifts which makes it stressful and expensive to source a taxi when they are on holiday or ill. With all the house building due to start we desperately need a bus service that covers working hours and weekends please!
Please add to your list that bus services should also be properly integrated at Gillingham and Sherborne Stations. Don’t forget us out on a limb in North Dorset.
Absolutely; and make sure the services are integrated with train services at Weymouth, Dorchester, Dorchester South and Crewekerne.
I agree. Include services from Axminster as well.
Can we please have services to towns in Somerset and Wiltshire such as Frome, Wincanton, Warminster and Shepton Mallet from Gillingham. We don’t just want to travel in Dorset and seem to get forgotten.
Please add to your list that bus services should also be properly integrated at Gillingham and Sherborne Stations. Don’t forget us out on a limb in North Dorset.
Bus back better!
I sit and dwell on what has and is happening ing to the use of English laguage by our our local and national government employees.
Please can they advice us why they must use this infantile language when communicating with us?
What does ‘Bus back better’ mean pleased?
Could we have extra frequent buses from Weymouth to Dorchester and back during Dorchester market on Wednesday’s?
Let us not forget the “non service” for Southill to and from Weymouth.
Southill is indeed desperate to have a bus service restored. There are many of us who do not drive & I for one have five doctor & hospital appointments in as many weeks. Having to taxi both ways each time works out very expensive.
Absolutely. And if the Govt/Council get their way and build another load of new houses off Radipole Lane, then all the more reason to give Southill its bus service back.
It would be nice to reinstate the bus service from either Wimborne or Ferndown to Salisbury if only once a week on market day.
I don’t know why it was taken off some years ago as it was always full up by the time you got to Downton !!!
I heartily agree
I hope this will include bus fleets moving to electric power.
It would be good to reinstate the bus service which passed
through Childe Okeford on weds.(market day) to Dorchester:
This was a well-used service and beneficial to residents –
Why oh why do buses not stop at Weymouth railway station? Passengers arriving by rail have to walk half a mile to the King’s Statue for any onward journey by bus and the principal bus route No1 drives past the station on its way to Portland! Crazy or what? Since both rail and bus services are operated by First Group -currently- you’d think there would be an incentive to link the services especially as the bus garage is across the road from the railway station.
We need our bus service to run from Dorchester to Wareham hourly Buses need to run more frequently in the Purbecks .We also need buses that go to the Royal Bouremouth Hospital as this is going to be the major accident hospital.We also need buses to link with train service A fully integrated transport system.
Bus route strategy needs a rethink: frequent Fast busses with few stops linking the towns, and further busses covering local loops around communities to bring busses nearer the population. Local loops to link with the fast bus routes. At stops with cycle racks for people who want to make their own way to the ‘spine route’.
it would be nice to get a bus but we have no buses in the village i live in.
I would like the bus service to cover the Highcliffe area including The train station at Hinton Admiral it would benefit so many ,
Please don’t forget Sherborne. We have experienced loss of the 57 plus reduced service on Saturdays and nothing on Sundays.
Please strengthen link between buses and ‘real time’ indicators so the information is accurate. Sometimes buses are signed and never arrive.
Any improvement will be welcome. I have no car. When I moved to Gillingham, North Dorset, in 2017, there was a bus service which ran through the town centre, or at least stopped at the Railway Station and Waitrose, and served housing estates to the North and West of the town. About 6 months ago this service was stopped. I am not the only person who used that bus and without it, I am finding it difficult to get about.
Consider a short, frequent ‘ Hopper Service ‘ linking West Moors/Verwood/ St Leonard & St Ives with Ringwood & Ferndown.
Thanks
I think it’s disgusting that first have brought all the old buses from Southampton to weymouth and took all the newj buses to Southampton.They said a few years ago fares had to rise to invest in newer buses. Ithink its because these old buses failed emissions tests in the city so they have dumped them on us.
Buses from Gillingham have diminished badly since we moved here 6 years ago. We used to be able to get direct buses to Blandford, Yeovil, etc. Now we have to bus to Shaftesbury and then change buses, which includes a long wait, or go to Sturminster Newton, and then a bus for Yeovil, and the same on the way back. It takes all day, which puts some people off visiting these places. Also the bus from Gillingham to Salisbury is not good, only once a day and leaving before the 9.30 deadline for using bus passes, and only gives a couple of hours in Salisbury before you have to get the only bus back. Not good for appointments for eye tests etc. Always in a panic in case you miss it, as the only other option is the train at extortionate prices.
Let’s not forget north south travel. The last changes removed services that required one to use cars unless you neede to travel on a day that the service ran, instead of a daily service.
I refer you to cllr Val Pothecary and my in depth proposals for specifically Gillingham which currently has no Bus service other than a limited service to Shaftesbury from Gillingham Station and back which is totally not suitable for the large population of the Town as a whole spread over such a large area.
Anything for North Dorset ?
Access from Blandford and the villages between to Gillingham – particularly to the station – is now complicated by the termination of the X3 in Shaftesbury needing a change which is not sufficiently reliable to be useful for going by train.
Totally appreciate this new initiative, local buses are essential in this area. Have a car but enjoy a bus ride to different places but at this time not enough services available. Traffic is building and any way of reducing this has got to be welcomed. Thank you.
While it’s very positive that areas in the west and south of Dorset are recognised, please could some thought be given to improving services in the North Dorset area! There are villages up this way that have had nothing for a long time and what there used to be was not particularly well-planned for service times.
A fast and more frequent bus service from Weymouth to Salisbury would be nice. At the moment there are so few of them that once you’ve got to Salisbury you have to either overnight there or take the only return bus a few moments after arrival. Doesn’t make any sense.
There are some excellent suggestions here and I am very pleased to see lots from North Dorset. We are extremely badly served (as with practically all services to do with anything) by public transport. Bus services, quite frankly are a joke. I looked at the Government’s Bus Back Better Plan and was disappointed to see very little about rural services, it is nearly all focused on towns and cities. The rural areas are forgotten once again, I hope Dorset Council doesn’t just focus on the larger towns.
I travel around the country a lot and it seems to me that the whole of the west country is still in the 19th Centurary. Every other part of the country have frequent bus and train services (even during the present pandemic) while here in the South West,Train and Bus services, were cut from once an hour to once every two hours. I’m not surprised people don’t use public transport when they are not consulted about ‘Timings’, but it seems to me passengers are not even ‘considered’. If services were more frequent and affordable, more people would use them. But at the moment they are infrequent and expensive. I have read all the above comments and heartily agree with most of them. If Dorset councillors had to travel via public transport I’m sure they would improve immediately. Just a small suggestion for improvement, why use big 50 seater buses for rural routes when 16 seater minibuses would surfice. Fuel usage and polution would be less, cutting down the running cost for a start.
Can you please remember Gillingham, Shaftesbury and villages in north Dorset. Don’t think there has been any useful bus service out here ever. And keep it affordable and attractive for everyone to use. I’m fed up with the huge amount of cars on the road.
More weekend (especially Sunday) services
The bus/train timetables for Wareham station are not co-ordinated
We need services to Harman’s Cross and Worth Maltravers/
Are we to have an RSPB service between Wareham station and the RSPB reserve at Arne?
On busy routes, might pensioners pay a nominal amount?
We may need a direct bus from Purbeck to the Royal Hospital Bournemouth.
We need a target for switching to electric buses and a plan to fund this.
Would supermarkets run shuttle buses?
Could we have more electronic screens at bus stops showing departure times?
Do Dorset travellers want to reduce greenhouses gases as a top priority?
Only cheaper more efficient transport will attract people away from their cars.
southill in weymouth does not have a bus service at all. There are many people who live here would use this, and a care home and police station would bring many more. We used to have a bus every 20 minutes , Now none. Please consider this . we are really in need
To get to Wimborne (or Bournemouth) from Blandford by bus you have to go into Poole first which is ridiculous when it is only 5/6 miles away.
Please can the 38 service between Ringwood and Ferndown via St Leonard’s and Ashley Heath run a bus later in the day? At present the last bus from Ring wood is at 1.50pm
A website with a journey planner facility like tfl offer would be great and make planning public transport journeys easier.
I use the X51 (and X53 occasionally). My experience of using the buses in my area have been that when the services ran hourly the buses tended to be full. However when the service was reduced to a maximum of two hourly with none in the evenings and currently, for the winter service, there are none on a Sunday the buses rarely appear to be full. Accessing hospital appointments and the railway station has become quite difficult and shops in Dorchester and Weymouth presumably have less footfall from those living in or near Bridport who do not have their own vehicle. I appreciate that Covid restrictions have been a large factor during the past two years.
I think buses in Shaftesbury needs an improvements on, buses service should be added to places like Yeovil, an express service for the 29 and cheaper fares so more people would rather choose buses and drive less, a cheaper fare is defintely needed for the X2 route to Gillingham, that is costing adults 5pounds 50p for one return ticket which is very expensive, the 86 bus to and from Tisbury should be change to a full week timetable as there aint an connection between Shaftesbury and Tisbury apart from the 86 which is only one to and from on Thursday.
X51 (Dorchester to Bridport) no longer goes through Martinstown leaving the village without a bus service. The village ungently needs a bus service to link them with Dorchester.