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News

Supported Bus Services To Be Maintained In Poole

At the Transportation Advisory Group (TAG) on Tuesday 29 August 2006 members agreed to continue to support the current subsidised bus service network in the Borough. Over 30 services are now safeguarded and are a mixture of daytime, evening and Sunday routes.

The decision came following a recommendation by the Route and Branch Review Group, a cross-party group of Poole councillors. Over the last few months the Review Group have been meeting regularly to consider the comments and feedback from local residents and regular bus users and agree which bus routes the Council should support.

This task became more challenging when Wilts and Dorset and Yellow Buses recently announced widespread changes to their commercial bus services and the Council acted at short notice to provide additional replacement routes. These include the number 7 serving the Bloxworth and Talbot View Estates and the number 19 in Broadstone.

The Group concluded that it wished to maintain the existing services although this decision will require more than £200,000 of additional support.

One service - Route 32 from Merley, Broadstone and Oakdale to Poole - will improve significantly. From 1st October the service will be operated by Shamrock Buses and will benefit from an extension via Bearwood to Bournemouth Hospital. In addition a much requested later afternoon journey back from Poole will be introduced.

Councillor Les Burden, Chair of the Transportation Advisory Group, said, "We are pleased that the decision has been taken to maintain the existing bus links in Poole in recognition that more and more people are now using buses. In 2005 alone we saw an increase of a million more bus journeys which is a great result.  However, the cost of providing new services is very expensive, for example putting one new bus on the road costs about £120,000 per year, and this does severely limit what the Council do. However, with the Route and Branch Review Group, we are looking at other options which will hopefully benefit public transport in the area".

Councillor Ron Parker, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for the Local Economy said "Letters from residents regarding recent changes to the bus services have filled my post bag and I hope people feel supported by the decision to leave council supported services unchanged. These bus services will be regularly reviewed to check that they are meeting community needs with reasonable levels of subsidy. The needs of the residents are being kept under constant review."

Over the last few years the Council has tried to address the travel needs of those without private cars in different and creative ways.  In addition to supporting buses the Council is a partner of the voluntary driver and dial-a-bus schemes.  Advice on this can be obtained from the Council's website, www.boroughofpoole.com, or by contacting the Council's Community Transport Advisor, Alison Pearman on 262220.

Katharine Teed, Communications, Borough of Poole on 01202 633295