• The post you are reporting:
   
  This investment by Stagecoach on 15 new low floor easy access double deck vehicles is most welcome - I was privilaged to look over one at the official launch on Friday at a rather foggy Battle of Britain memorial site. The buses came into service this morning and it is possible to travel from Dover to Hastings - new timetables are available.
  
  I had an interesting discussion with the new Managing Director at Stagecoach for this area about future bus provision in the Dover District - some revolutionary ideas and we will be meeting him soon.
  
  The day also marked a major step forward for bus travel in the Dover District with the signing of the Dover Quality Bus Partnership which is a formal agreement to advance the experienec of bus travel even more. The new MD signed for Stagecoach, the Cabinet Member signed for Kent County Council and I was the one present for Dover District Council.
  
  Back at the latter part of 2003, just after I was given the portfiolio, I rang the then Managing Director at Stagecoach and asked how we could improve buses and bus services in the Dover District - I was fed up with seeing new vehices in neighbouring areas and didn't want to see Dover left out - there was complete silence - 'Paul?' I asked and he slowly said that he was surprised what I was asking for reasons I won't go in to.
  
  It was a long hard slog at first convincing our potential partners that we were serious and committed to see services improve and of course we were also dealing with the extensive lobbying to get the high speed train extended to Dover at the same time. After diary date clashes and other unaviodable happenings we all met and since then our working with Kent County Council as the public transport provider and Stagecoach as the principle bus service provider has continued to improve. This led to the successful Kick-start bid that saw the Diamond Services start in July 2006 closely followed by the Heart Services later that year. The frequency of the Diamond routes has now been vertually doubled following the increase in the number of people using the service.
  
  We didn't stop there - new easy access buses were on the roads but we needed to go further providing shelters wherever possible, more raised kerbs to help with the access and the 'Clearways' to enable the buses to get close to the kerbs for parents with buggies and wheelchair users to get onto the bus - not popular with some but last time I asked about 30% of people in our District do not have access to a car - this figure will possibly grow with the recession and pressure from the Government is to make bus travel a better alternative to the car for environmental reasons. The Quality Bus Partnership will deal with this.
  
  At the launch, DDC Officers and I also spoke with the KCC Cabinet Member regarding taking forward the business cases for the £5.4millions for transport improvements in Dover that have been selected as bids in the Community Infrastructure Fund mentioned in another thread - 'Keeping on track for another multi-million pound regeneration boost'.

Report Post

Your Name

Reason