To a meeting today attended by local district and county councillors as well as parish representatives about the bus service reductions that the county council will trigger by withdrawal of its subsidies.It was good to see our local "industry" present, aka the Duxford Air Museum in attendance in the form of its director, no less. So a bit of Big Society thinking going on here.
For information, the C7 bus serving Whittlesford and Heathfield will be reducing its frequency but good news, changes to its route should improve its punctuality. Click for the Stagecoach information.
Tim Stone chaired the meeting and the debate ranged far and wide, but the upshot of it is that there needs to be three "layers" of public transport going forward:
1. The commercial services such as the C7;
2. The semi-community funded, feeding in to the commercial hubs;
3. The community and dial-a-ride schemes that a lot of parishes are supporting.
The colourful chart shows community car schemes - as mapped by the district council officers. Interestingly there isn't a lot of coverage in the Thriplow, Duxford, Whittlesford, Sawston area, which may be because of the good transport links and the good local services such as the surgery at Sawston. Next step is to be clear where the cuts will be made, and do a gap analysis to see what should fill it - and be realistic about what can and cannot be done to replace the millions of pounds of subsidies.
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