Bus boost for Melksham!

BUS services in Melksham are set for a boost with the return of evening and Sunday services to Chippenham and Trowbridge.

There will also be additional journeys added to the Trowbridge to Corsham service, ‘route 69’, which serves Melksham and many of the surrounding villages.

All the improvements were recently championed by Melksham’s two councils in their responses to Wiltshire Council’s consultation about how to improve services across the county.

The improvements have been made by Wiltshire Council, who were given £671,000 from the government in March this year, to help improve the provision of local bus services.

In total, Wiltshire Council has selected 34 bus service improvements across the county for implementation within the current financial year.

“The loss of the evening buses from Chippenham and Trowbridge in 2015 was painful” says Graham Ellis of Option 24/7 – the Wiltshire community group which was set up in 2016 to work for better bus services for passengers, operators and local government.

“The restoration of these links, which were well used, was one of the triggers that led to our formation. Option 24/7 is now working right across Wiltshire, with local reps in all but two community areas, on tuning the ‘Bus Service Improvement Plan,’ which will see further enhanced partnership improvements in future years, funded from central government.”

Details of the new services are being worked out; more information should be available at the Melksham Transport User Group meeting (in person and online via Zoom) on the evening of Wednesday 15th Sept. – see http://melksham.town/mtug or via their website soon thereafter.

“This is the first of a number of improvements over the next three years” says Graham, who is also a Melksham Town councillor. “Evening and Sunday buses linking Chippenham and Trowbridge, as supported by the new town council too, are most welcome, and our request for the town bus to be rerouted past the train station, whilst not possible this year, remains on everyone’s radar for next year.”

Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for transport, cllr Dr Mark McClelland, said, “We are pleased to confirm these plans to improve the provision of bus service in our communities.

“The timescale of the introduction of these improvements will depend on driver cost and availability. We are currently experiencing a county-wide problem with a shortage of bus drivers, as is the case nationally, and will therefore only be able to introduce these extra journeys once we can be sure that it will not affect the reliability of existing services.”

More bus improvements on the horizon?

Wiltshire Council will be submitting its ‘Bus Service Improvement Plan’ next month to the Department of Transport in a bid for a share of £3billion that has been set aside by the government to make improvements throughout England.

Responses from local people, Melksham’s two councils, and representatives from businesses and organisations, were used to help Wiltshire Council form its ‘Bus Service Improvement Plan’.

In their responses, Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Council jointly called for the evening bus service between Trowbridge, Melksham and Chippenham to be restored and improvements made to the 69 bus service – which have all been recently announced.

Additional comments called for better bus connections between the town and surrounding areas with the railway station.

The two councils also backed suggestions for improvements made by local group, Melksham Transport User Group, which aim to help “tune the service” so it takes people where and when they want to travel.

Melksham Transport User Group’s suggestions for enhancements to the service include updating the current timetable to provide a more “robust” service; and an electric bus service.    

“The Department for Transport are looking for an Electric Bus Town for major funding for the next five years,” say Melksham Transport User Group in their response to Wiltshire Council. “Melksham could qualify.   

“Congestion, dirty air from over 200 extra lorries passing by the town every day, population size and growth projections, flat nature of the land, electric vehicle charging points in King Street and at the [railway] station all help this work.”

For more information about Option 24/7, visit http://option247.uk – which also includes a full list of all 34 service improvements recently selected.