AN innovative proposal for an electric bus service between Westbury and Frome could help revolutionise the country’s bus service and support the fight against climate change.
Plans are currently under way to create a proposal to replace the current Westbury to Frome service – which operates five times a day using two diesel buses – with an hourly service using four electric buses, creating a ‘zero carbon emissions’ bus corridor between the two towns.
And it is hoped that if successful, the electric bus corridor could provide a model that could be quickly expanded across Wiltshire and Somerset; and then England.
“If the government’s eventual aim – which is what they say in ‘Bus Back Better’ [the government’s vision to transform and improve bus services in England] – is for all bus services to be ‘zero emission’ – at some point they have to test that on a route like Westbury/Frome,” said Lee Fletcher from Option 24/7, Wiltshire’s county-wide bus user group. “And this will be the ideal opportunity for them to do this.”
The estimated cost of the proposal is £1.5million, which could be funded by the Department for Transport’s ‘zero emissions bus regional area scheme’.
Involved in the plans are a number of local groups and councils, including Westbury Town Council, Frome Town Council, Option 24/7, and the Somerset Bus Partnership – who will collectively pitch the idea of the Westbury/Frome electric bus corridor to Wiltshire Council – who subsidise the current Westbury/Frome service – in a bid to include it as part of the county’s Bus Service Improvement Plan that will be submitted to the government.
According to Option 24/7, the electric bus service could help save Wiltshire Council money. Currently the council subsidises the route at a cost of £92,000 per year, but Option 24/7 say that an electric bus service would need an estimated annual subsidy of £80,000.
“The lower cost of operating electric buses means there would be a saving,” the group says.
Westbury Town Council – who have not committed any resources to this project yet – will begin to discuss their involvement in the proposal at their Vision for Westbury sub-committee meeting on Thursday 2nd September – the sub-committee will then make a recommendation that will be discussed at a meeting of the town council’s Highways, Planning and Development Committee.
