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How important is public transport to people in the Melksham area?

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2011-10-19 13:51:31 - Graham Ellis

The "Wiltshire Intelligence Network" (based at County Hall, Trowbridge), ran a "Sense of Place" survey in 2008 asking people about there local areas, at the time the Wiltshire was going Unitary and the area boards were being set up. You can find a link to the surveys, area by area, [here]

Question ... What is important and what most needs improving in your area?

TWENTY possible answers were given (and each person chose 5).

In MELKSHAM, "Public Transport" came out 5th out of 20 in terms of importance, and 4th out of 20 in need of improvement. I've added a green highlight to the diagram to show where it is. Only "Health Services" came higher that public transport in both catergories. (click on image to enlarge in another window)

Is this any surprise? Not really.

• Time and again, parts of Melksham are highlighted in this report as being amongst the worst 10%; indices of deprivation, child wellbeing, multiple deprivation. And school results are way down this list too. These are indicators of none-affluence which in turn point to a higher public transport reliance.

• The survey also shown 14.9% of households without a car or van at all in Melksham - that's one in seven, and that Melksham is 4th out of 20 in the percentage of working age people claiming jobseeker's allowance. It also shows Melksham as being 6th out of 20 in Percentage of working age people who are on Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance or Disability Living Allowance; that's significant because these are people who are likely to be unable to drive for health reasons, and are more reliant on public transport.

• Public Transport connectivity from out of the area is seriously lacking, with problems in our immediate area. I travelled home from London during the day a few weeks ago - the 11:00 train from Paddington brought me into Chippenham at 12:09, but by the time I walked across town and caught the non-connecting bus, I didn't arrive in Melksham until 13:25. Think of what this does for businesses - for overseas visitors or for visitors from London who live in the suburbs and have no need of a car because of their superb bus and underground network.

• There are bus flows where it's painfully obvious that the best use isn't being made of the vehicles available. Two buses an hour (but just 3 minutes apart!) from Melksham to both Bath and Chippenham - for goodness sake they should be every 30 minutes! - and then a long gap - anyone who finishes work at 5 p.m. at Bowerhill has about two minutes to get off the industrial area to the bus stop for the 5 p.m. bus, or wait 129 minutes (i.e. until after 7 p.m) for the next one!.

• Why do we still have such an inadequate train service (2 trains each way per day, very early morning and early evening only), when study after study show a strong case - business, operational, economic and public - for a service of around 10 trains each way?

• Information is lacking. Many bus stops lack timetables, and those that have them are often incomplete. And I don't think the Melksham area has a single "next bus" sign - not even in the town centre - of the sort you see in many other places including Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon. And have you ever tried finding out bus fares and terms and conditions? I know about the lack of transferrabiity between First and Faresaver (and exceptions in the evening), but it was only yesterday that I learned that if I go to Trowbridge on the 235 I can use my ticket back on the 234, but if I go out on the 234 my ticket is not valid for return on the 235 ....


Next Wednesday - that's 26th October 2011 - the Area Board is holding their meeting at Seend Community Centre, and the theme is "Public Transport". Keynote speaker is Richard Gamble, Wiltshire Council Portfolio Holder for Public Transport, and a really good friend of public transport - working (IMHO) very hard for its betterment in spite of some really tough financial pressures, and a rules and regulations framework that make it very hard indeed to provide the best, cost effective service for the public transport user.

I applaud the area board in moving their meetings around the area - holding some meetings in Melksham and others in the surrounding villages. But I find it somewhat ironic that it's impractical to attend the meeting ON public transport BY public transport if you live in Melksham itself. I wonder how this has come about ... it certainly doesn't shout "open and joined up thinking" to me ... and it provides almost poetic illustration that we have much to do together to improve transport.

Let's go forward positively. If anyone needs a ride from Melksham that evening, I'll be driving an I'll have a couple of spare seats in the car.

P.S. Agenda / details of minutes and papers [here]