Dorset Council has submitted its bid for the Government’s Bus Back Better £3 billion fund to revitalise the nation’s bus services.
In March the Government launched Bus Back Better, a new National Bus Strategy for England with aims to rejuvenate local bus services by making them:
- More attractive for passengers
- More affordable
- Easier to understand and use
- Faster and more reliable
- Greener
This strategy requires each authority to produce a Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) to coordinate services and future investment through either an Enhanced Partnership (EP) or Franchise approach.
Dorset Council has developed their BSIP by working closely with local bus operators, community and business voices, bus passengers, and the voluntary and health transport sectors.
This BSIP is an ambitious plan. It focuses on revitalising the local bus network, reversing the decline in local bus passenger use and to have more buses, to more places and operating for longer periods of the day.
The key aims of the BSIP are:
- To significantly increase the number of people using local buses across Dorset
- To increase daily services with a mix of fixed and flexible services across rural and urban areas of Dorset
- To develop a range of on-demand public transport services delivered by a mix of operators by identifying gaps in the current local bus network
- To continue to protect Dorset’s environment by moving to a decarbonised local bus fleet
- Create and maintain a comprehensive network of travel options to link up communities and reduce rural isolation.
Cllr Ray Bryan, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said:
“This plan is just the start. To get people to use the bus we must have a long-term plan and a guarantee of long-term Government funding for at least 5 years so that we can change people’s views and build their confidence to use the bus.
Cllr. Noc Lacey-Clarke, The Cabinet Lead for Environment, Travel and Harbours, said:
“We are keen to develop a bus strategy that is available to everyone, with particular attention to access to training, education and work.”
Once the BSIP is submitted the council will wait for an announcement from Government on whether they will be awarded money from the fund and how much. Once the amount is known then an amended BSIP and action plan will take the plans forward.
Comments, suggestions, and ideas can be emailed to busbackbetter@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
People do not need their confidence built up in order to use a bus – they just need to have a bus to use, which is often not the case, not only in rural areas where bus services have been decimated but in urban areas like Southill in Weymouth too. (The problem has arisen because ‘you can’t have something for nothing’ and the payback for free bus passes has been that you end up with no buses on which to use them)!
Why has someone let a picture of a bus with doors on the Continental side be shown, we do not drive on the right.
Hi Andrew – it is a stock image that’s all. Fiona
I echo Sharon Frith’s comment in that the loss of a bus service for Southill was a retrograde step inasmuch as a simple reallocation of route from Westham via Southill, which still has the bus stop furniture and a safe turning area at the Southill shops, could have simply covered this area with a minimal effect by the rescheduling of existing the Hereford Road services.
This is even more important with the new rest home of some 60 beds about to be opened and the redevelopment of the old Marquesi House site about to begin, both will have staff, residents and occupants. Long suffering Southill residents would welcome such a service.
Any new bus contractor had better guarantee to provide all-electric buses by 2025.
I’m fed up being deafened by the very noisy diesel engines and breathing in the nasty pollution particles emitted by the old buses.
I thought in the BSIP meetings we highlighted, (to go into the BBB Bid) was “more frequent buses to more places”, “more links to travel hubs for onward rail/bus/air travel” (for example), or did I miss something?
“More affordable” was not that high on the list. What exactly does “more attractive to passengers” mean? Is it a nice shiny new paint job for the buses, with nice clean interiors, sweet smelling with comfy seats?
“Faster and more reliable”! – try telling that to our rural bus drivers at planting/harvest and muck spreading time, on narrow rural roads.
I don’t think that this is a true reflection of what we discussed during the online meetings.