The travesty of our local transport - Letter / opinion, Frome Standard

[whole diary]

[grahame]

http://www.fromestandard.co.uk/travesty-local-transport/story-22791784-detail/story.html

My oldest son and I have enjoyed watching The 15 Billion Pound Railway about Crossrail ^ the new service that will run from Reading and Heathrow then underground through central London and Canary Wharf to Shenfield in Essex and Abby Wood in south east London.

Now the City bankers who got us into this mess get a shiny new rail link at our expense. And over the border in Wiltshire there is a new rail service from Westbury to Melksham and Swindon. What do we get?

Well, the 267 bus service stopped serving Rode, although this has been reinstated for now. The 161 service to Wells now runs every other hour instead of hourly ^ and you can't get to Shepton Mallett before 11.30am. The 184 is also every other hour ^ and doesn't run on Sundays so the 2,000 or so inhabitants of Coleford don't get any public transport one day of the week.

Our train service is suffering from significant overcrowding, only runs every other hour and Somerset County Council won't pay to stay in the Heart of Wessex Line Partnership.

In addition to this there seems to be some issues over the future of the First Group 267 service.

It seems that there is likely to be a by-election for a seat on Somerset County Council but I am rather wondering if it's worth the bother given the complete lack of interest in public transport for Frome and the surrounding area.

It seems that our taxes are going to benefit the inhabitants of London and Wiltshire but not us.

John Boxall

Grange Road

Frome

[grahame]

Dear John, I was interested in your comparison of the line through Frome to the line through Melksham - two towns with very similar populations. Until last December, Melksham had just two departures a day to Chippenham and beyond, and that has now risen to 8 (less on Sundays). Frome has fourteen departures today to Westbury and beyond - nearly twice the number of trains that now leave from Melksham in the main direction. Please do not begrudge us an improvement that has left us brought us forward, but still leaves us with far less of a train service than that already enjoyed by Frome.

Yes, it is worth your while bothering - get involved and you may find you can make a difference. Strong community inputs and working with elected representatives at many levels have helped make the Wiltshire improvements (performing well ahead of target, and projected with even on-target performance to be selffunding after initial traffic build up) possible, and there's no reason why that couldn't be done over the county line into Somerset.  Indeed public transport's all about getting from "A" to "B" and involves us working together across borders - look wider than just Frome - look at where people would want to go on extra trains - Swindon, perhaps, with interchange options along the way - and you have a co-operative network improvement for us all.

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

It is interesting how the policies of local transpaort authorities vary. From what I read it seems that Devon and Somerset policies have ended up with a vicious circle of decreasing local transport services, much caused by central govenrment budget cuts I suspect. Here in Oxfordshire, we have seen expansion of local bus services helped by county council and Oxford City Council policies to suppor public transport with subsidies and other prectical measurers to make the use of public more attractive to users. Since June our two local Hanborough bus services are now operated commercially by Stagecoach after many years of being subsidised. Improvements in West Oxon bus services have been introduced to the Witney and Carterton to Oxford services and the Woodstock to Oxford service has changed from half hourly to every 20 minutes. I was on this bus yesterday leaving Woodstock at 12.32, very off-peak, and by the time it reached central Oxford at 13.05 it was well over half full (a double decker by the way with comfortable leather seats).
I am not usually a supporter of Conservative regimes but Conservative Oxfordshire CC has not done too badly on the tranport front beaaring in mind the pressure to keep making spending cuts on services. Wiltshire seems to have very reaonable transport policies from what I read in Graham's blogs here. (am I wong Graham?)

[Lee]

Oh dear - John seems to be under the impression that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) (after years of us asking, mind) suddenly decided to throw us the money required for an appropriate TransWilts Rail service, just so they could become Wiltshire's new best mates, whilst saying "Yah Boo Sucks" to Somerset in general, and Frome in particular.

In reality of course, as regular forum readers and truly knowledgeable observers of the regional transport scene will be well aware, the money required for an appropriate TransWilts Rail service came as a result of it forming the centrepiece of Wiltshire's success in a competitive bidding process to the DfT's Local Sustainable Transport Fund. The bid, entitled Improving Wiltshire's Rail Offer, can be viewed at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/lstf-application-form.pdf

It should be noted that improvements at Trowbridge and Westbury stations, both served by Heart of Wessex rail services and "claimed" by the Partnership, were included in the successful bid.

A follow-up bid, entitled Connecting Wiltshire - Improving Integrated Travel, which had at its core the twin-track approach of further developing both the TransWilts Rail and Connecting Wiltshire integrated transport brands was put forward for the 2015-2016 LSTF^▸ (Local Sustainable Transport Fund) funding tranche. Although, I personally believe that we had proved (and continue to prove through joint promotional initiatives such as those backing Free Bus Fortnight), that the two brands have the potential to complement each other extremely well, the bid was unfortunately rejected - a particular shame given that it also included opening up the northern entrance to Melksham station. See http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/lstf-2015-16-final-bid.pdf

We certainly haven't given up though - watch this space for further innovative (and dare I say potentially groundbreaking) integrated transport plans that we intend to put forward in the very near future.

If that doesn't give John food for thought, then I suspect the following documents will. Firstly, here are the LSTF bids that Somerset County Council were a lead authority for so far:

SUCCESSFUL

Moving Bridgwater Forward - www.somerset.gov.uk/EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.aspx?alId=43123

REJECTED

Two Moors Sustainable Visitor Travel Project (including improved Okehampton and Minehead rail links) - www.somerset.gov.uk/EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.aspx?alId=43110

Smart Rural Travel Project - www.somerset.gov.uk/EasySiteWeb/GatewayLink.aspx?alId=47602

And here are the LSTF bids that Dorset County Council were a lead authority for so far:

SUCCESSFUL

Improving Travel (Weymouth-Dorchester) - https://www.dorsetforyou.com/402591

Three Towns Travel - https://www.dorsetforyou.com/threetownstravel

Sustainable Access To Employment - https://www.dorsetforyou.com/413280

REJECTED

School Travel Health Check - http://www.sthc.co.uk/Documents/Dorset_LSTF_STHC_Bid_Application.pdf

The above Somerset and Dorset-led LSTF bids all have one thing in common - None of them contain any measures that specifically relate to the Heart of Wessex line. By contrast, the TransWilts line has been at the very heart of both Wiltshire-led LSTF bids.

That, I'm afraid John, is the key difference between your situation and ours.

[JayMac]

Rather like currently in the cricket, Somerset need to up their game?

[thetrout]

Sigh... BIG SIGH at that!

It's opinion pieces like this that get on my nerves. Yes we all know that transport on the buses side in Frome isn't ideal by any means. We know that we lost 50% on our 161 service. Some rural routes have been lost completely.

I cannot for the life of me see First pulling that 267 completely. Rode has no justification for an hourly service. Fact. 2 Hourly yes. I think First Bus could do no harm in agreeing to run a 2 hourly service if the passenger numbers could sustain that. Of the 200 people or so from memory who responded to that petition, I so rarely see passengers alighting/boarding in Rode. My travel patterns are random, which to me suggests that actually very little people do use the service. That however is a personal opinion and should be treated a such. So maybe 50 people use the service in a day (arguments sake) that is a long way off 200 who responded to the petition.

What also doesn't help is we have people in Frome (who are very articulate/self focused almost) who like to pretend they know it all. Also if it's not suited to their needs directly, then it's not needed and we don't want it/the town doesn't want it. One of the things about the buses in Frome which has annoyed me in particular, were comments raised about the X34 Service which I strongly objected to in the Frome Annual Town Meeting. As a representative of Frome Youth Council, I took a hard stance on this for various reasons:

• X34 is a half hourly frequency
• X34 offers Kids for a Quid - Use any part/all of the route for ^1
• X34 connects well to the 265 in Trowbridge and also services from Trowbridge Railway Station
• X34 allows students to travel at Child Fares i.e. in this case ^1 Single, ^2 Return
• Ladyfriend Trout is 26 and a Student. She pays ^1 to go from Frome to Trowbridge or Chippenham
• Taking all the above into account, as a Student, you could not drive the route for ^1 per day. It is not possible

Some will now say I am like a dog with a bone on this one. I am. The X34 is a brilliant example of a commercial operation that is clearly sustaining itself otherwise why would Faresaver run it for so long on a 30 minute frequency?? Faresaver were the first to offer to run their services via Frome Hospital when FirstBus threw in the towel over their 161. FirstBus followed suit on the 267 shortly afterwards.

If Faresaver are running the X34 on the Frome part of the route at a loss and absorbing those costs from revenue on the remainder of the route, then Kudos to them!

Anyhow, when I objected to the comments in the Frome ATM^‡(resolve), I was met with a look of complete horror, frustration and disbelief. I held a good argument in my view. It is worth pointing out that most of those leading the 267 campaign have their own vehicles to use. But it was evident the lady in question was not expecting such a response as she constructed a weak return argument and I declined to press it further as it was going to be a tit for tat argument and disruptive to the meeting generally. I would have been happy to explain my reasons after the meeting, I was made to feel like I was invisible as they just looked straight through me. However I feel proud I represented the young people of Frome who I have seen plentifully use this very service.

I'm not saying I know it all. I don't by any means. But I like to think I contribute a realistic side to the picture. Those who have other transport are biased in my opinion. We don't want x number of buses on the road because of congestion.

There was also the suggestion in a different meeting that Frome could have a transport hub behind the Cheese and Grain to integrate onto the railway. I almost faceplanted the table. The triangle has gone and due to housing developments is not coming back ever! Weymouth Trains would not be able to use Frome North Parade station as it's the wrong line completely. It's single track which used exclusively for Quarry and Engineering trains. Sadly unless the Radstock line comes back, a total non starter. Even then if it did come back, it will only cause confusion of which station people need for the xx:05 train. Some of my friends rely on me to provide them with detailed rail travel as they don't like travelling on their own. Whilst most of it is common sense, I understand the anxiety behind it all.

Now do you see the type of people *we* are up against?!

[Alan Pettitt]

Also he states that you can't get from Frome to Shepton Mallet before 11.30. As a frequent traveller on the 0731 from Butts Hill to Shepton Mallet (Frome Minibuses) I shall have to tell the driver on Tuesday that he is running about 3 hours early!