Great Western Coffee Shop

Any updates on how this has been progressing?

An excellent question, and one I've been somewhat remiss in following up.

Thanks to dozens of volunteers (including Alan, who did much more than most - THANK YOU ....), between 85% and 90% of Melksham's households were leafletted at the end of July about the free bus fortnight which has been running on the town's metro bus service - routes 14 and 15.  The regular fare of ^1 single and ^1.50 return has been waived for the two weeks to encourage people to use the bus, and 8,000 promotional flyers, together with 10,000 maps and TransWilts timetables were printed and distributed, ensuring that we covered the various sectors of route 14, and Berryfield and East Melksham's new housing on route 15.   Funding - an LSTF transport promotion.  Objective - to get people to try the local bus ... CRP helping with the distribution as it was a chance to give wider local transport publicity.

Feedback ... formally will come after the conclusion of the fortnight, when the bus operators tally the figures and send them through to Wiltshire Council.   I don't know how long after that will be, nor whether the figures will be published in any way or regarded as commercial in confidence.   Informally ...

Bus drivers report significantly /noticably more people riding since the start of the month, and there being a particular marked increase in the number of people who are younger than the typical passenger on these buses.   In fact I had quite a chat with one of the drivers I know, and the extra youth traffic has been such that it has in some cases caused concern to the regular senior passengers who rarely interact with the town's youth.   No suggestion of any impropriety in any way ... just a rather sad reflection on the society we live in that the elderly are sometimes in fear of the teenager wearing his "hoodie".

Additionally, noteworthy addition of young mums / 20-summats using the bus noticeably more.  Bus driver wondered if it would be better for them / more healthy for them to walk ... I'm really not sure whether or not that's the case in the detail of journeys over they fortnight, but the objective of having them try out the bus and then know about how to do so for appropriate journeys in the future is being met.

Yesterday, I was down at Sainsbury's late lunchtime and it started raining REAL hard ("cats and dogs" type stuff), accompanied by a gentlemen who really didn't want to walk up back through town and get soaked.    So we used the No. 15 bus from "The Bear".  The No. 14 left well loaded (most seats taken) ahead of us ... the No. 15 had a total of six of us riding when it left the Market Place, none of whom was old enough for a senior card.   I did note the driver - one I don't know - carefully check with us to make sure that it really was the 15 and not the 14 that we wanted;   seemed in doubt as to whether I knew where I was going  ;)  ... tell me we still have work to do on getting that route up to the level of the 14.

Long term effect / rail publicity effect?   We'll have to see.  On the rail side, the publicity is out there in many ways and they're adding up.   Snapshot of our hotel ... five rooms, this week four customers for courses / activities in town.   One is commuting from Swindon on a daily basis and complaining like h**l about how long it's taking and how bad the roads are.   Two arrived by train on Sunday (1) and Monday (1) and are leaving by train this afternoon (the 16:31).   Final guest's first time in the UK, and was collected from a London airport by hosts at another activity in town.  Here over the weekend though and will be using public transport to do a bit of sightseeing. 

Summary ... the bus fortnights' running 'to plan' and forms a part of the whole change of emphasis on transport that we're seeing coming through in Melksham in particular as it catches up with where one might have expected it to be had it had appropriate public transport for the last decade.