Improving our bus services

(Do you know who took the old photo in Marlborough High St?  If so, we'd love to hear from you.)

Last year, we worked with our colleagues in the Bedwyn Trains Passenger Group to persuade Wiltshire Council to reduce the impacts of their cuts to the Bedwyn bus service, read more here...  Despite this partially favourable outcome, our local bus services still do not serve the needs of Marlborough's working population: they don't link with early morning commuter trains that leave Bedwyn, Pewsey or Swindon stations and the first bus does not arrive in Swindon town until after 8.30 am - too late for those who work in the NHS or do other caring work.  Our passenger survey in 2012 suggested that most bus users are women, while more frequent and faster services to Swindon and a direct service to Devizes, are called for.

We are now planning a more detailed survey to find out what bus service improvements local people would like to see.

The old photo above shows that there was a bus shelter in Malborough High Street, close to Polly Tea Rooms in the 1960's.  However, our Town Council is still procrastinating over whether or not to install a new bus shelter outside Ladbrokes, despite residents' constant requests to the Area Board and the Town Council, see Gazette and Herald article also the Marlboroughnewsonline article.  We are now working with one of our town councillors who regularly uses the buses, to convince other councillors that this shelter is desperately needed, particularly by older people and to persuade them to vote in favour of installing a new bus shelter to protect all waiting passengers from the wind and rain.

Please get in touch with us via transport@transitionmarlborough.org, if you wish to take part in this campaign.

Sustainable Transport Projects listing:

• Marlborough Rail Link
• Marlborough Cycle Network
  • Marlborough Cycle Network map
• Improving our bus services