Bidding for Local Transport

Parish councils and community groups in south Warwickshire are being invited to contact Stratford-on-Avon District Council to discuss development of locally run transport schemes. The district council has included over £100,000 in its new budget to support social and community transport projects.

"Public transport throughout our district ranges from reasonable to totally inadequate, and we want to work with local communities to do something together about that," said Cllr Trevor Russel, the council's deputy leader.

"We are discussing with organisations that run existing schemes how we might help them to expand to cover new areas, and I hope to announce some decisions shortly.

"But we also want to encourage new schemes to start up, run at the parish level wherever possible. There are numerous examples from around the country of very successful parish-led initiatives, e.g. social car schemes, that could be adopted in our district to make travel easier for many residents.

"We are inviting parish councils to discuss local schemes with us. I encourage them - and community groups - to bring proposals to us. We will look especially closely at schemes that benefit people in need in areas with few, if any, buses.

"Lack of access to transport can affect the quality of life for many residents, in particular older and young people. It's precisely to help tackle this problem that we have included new money in next year's budget to support social and community transport schemes."

Anyone interested in developing a locally run transport scheme should contact Chris Mitchell on 01789 260108.