Bus 155

[Stephen Jenner]

According to a Nu-venture tweet bus 155 will be withdrawn in the evening after 30th April and on Sundays from 2nd May

Sent from my iPhone

[Clive Cheeseman]

A new service 29 between Peters Village and Maidstone on Tuesdays and Thursdays is now on the Nu Venture website and Twitter.

One journey each way - 0939 depart Peters Village, returning from Maidstone at 1208. Starts next Tuesday, the 19th.

[Chris]

By pure chance, I happened to be on the last full-length northbound journey this evening (1734 ex Maidstone - 6423 was the vehicle in question), and there was much talk about the withdrawal and the new service 29. 

The following message was posted to Facebook by Councillor Andrew Kennedy, who is a district/KCC councillor for that area, and may provide some additional 'flavour', and perhaps a view to what might happen in months to come. Trenport are the developers of Peters Village. 

"Residents will be aware that Arriva decided to discontinue the 155 bus service from Wouldham to Maidstone from 16 April 2022. This was a commercial decision taken by Arriva and wholly unconnected with Kent County Council.

Over the past 12 weeks I have been working tirelessly with Tracey Crouch MP, Officers at KCC, NuVenture and Trenport to see what we could do to ensure the residents who rely on this service were not left stranded. My particular concerns were to:

*Ensure children could travel to schools in Maidstone and Chatham

*Provide a service so those without their own transport could do their weekly shopping

*Safeguard those who need to attend hospital or medical appointments

A combination of falling passenger numbers, changing work patters following the pandemic, increased fuel and insurance costs and historic unreliability of the service, have combined to make the route unviable. It would require a subsidy of over quarter of a million pounds a year to maintain the present service, this is the equivalent of £82 on every household’s Council Tax in Wouldham, Burham, Eccles and Aylesford Village.

While initial meetings with Trenport and KCC proved positive, and an agreement was reached in principle that the money Trenport had designated to improve the service pre-Covid could be used to support the present timetable, a number of legal obstacles prevented this happening despite my best endeavours to find a solution. Trenport have told me they remain committed to supporting public transport in the Wouldham, Burham, Eccles and Aylesford areas, and once these legal issues are resolved I hope the funding will be available again to restore much of the service now lost.

In the meantime, we need to do what we can to ensure the most urgent needs of residents are met as follows:

*Tracey Crouch has secured to continuation of the morning and afternoon school service until the end of the summer term. This will provide time to find a longer-term solution.

*The poorly used evening and Sunday service will be terminated from 2 May 2022. This will free-up revenue to provide a limited service during the week, when it is most needed.

*From Tuesday 19 April 2022 NuVenture will run two busses a week, connecting the villages of Wouldham, Peters Village, Burham, Eccles and Aylesford to Maidstone via Ringlestone. See timetable attached. This will be a new service (Bus No. 29).

*Tracey Crouch and I will work with the NHS to ensure those who need to visit Maidstone or Medway Hospitals are provided with transport via the Hospital Transport Service."

I do understand this is not the service we need or the outcome we hoped for, but I am afraid it is the best we could do under the difficult circumstances. I do however remain hopeful that when Trenport are in a position to meet their previous commitments, KCC, working with NuVenture, will be able to provide an improved service to the local community."