FROM January 30th, the D1 bus service will no longer run from Warminster to Salisbury and the additional peak-hour service, the D1X is to be scrapped completely. This will affect people living in Westbury who rely on the bus service to get to Salisbury, a route that is used by students and commuters.
Wiltshire Council has insisted that they will arrange for a different bus company to pick up the service between Warminster and Salisbury. The council says a new timetable will be available at the end of the month that will cater to the needs of students and commuters.
Cllr Dr Mark McClelland, Wiltshire Council cabinet member for transport, said, “We know this particular route is important to people and having no service will adversely impact their daily lives. Therefore, we’re doing everything we can to get a new provider in quickly to fill that gap and ensure there is no disruption for people.”
First West of England say that the changes have been made due to low passenger numbers, but that the D1 service will continue to operate hourly, Monday to Friday daytime, from Bath to Warminster via Trowbridge. There will be no change to Saturday, Sunday, and public holiday services.
First West of England’s Managing Director, Doug Claringbold said, “We already made changes to some of our Bath timetables earlier last year, with frequencies reduced slightly on selected routes in response to the nationwide shortage of bus drivers, which has exacerbated existing difficulties with recruiting drivers in Bath and was impacting our ability to maintain service levels.
“Unfortunately, this comes on top of issues with the viability of some Bath services that pre-dated the pandemic and will not therefore be resolved by any recovery in passenger numbers. Although regrettably we have had to reduce service levels between Bath and Warminster and will no longer operate to Salisbury, the West of England combined authority has been able to provide financial support to a number of services to limit any changes coming into effect on 30th January.”
