A COMMUNITY transport scheme in Tenbury has doubled its fleet of buses.

The Tenbury Transport Partnership has taken over a mini bus on a short term lease agreement from Worcestershire County Council.

Its long term future will be evaluated during a trail period up to Christmas.

The Mercedes mini bus will be used on a range of regular services leaving the other bus available both as back up and for other hire work.

This marks another milestone for the Transport Partnership that says that it has trebled its number of regular passengers in the past 12 months.

“I year ago we had about 50 regular passengers and now it is up to about 150,” said John Driver, chairman of the partnership.

As well as the buses there is also a group of car drivers who operate taxi type services on a regular basis.

Tenbury Transport Partnership operates five different regular routes that link the town with places like Kidderminster, Leominster, Menithwood and Clifton-upon-Teme.

The service that links Tenbury with Leominster was the most recent to be launched and this runs on the first and third Friday of every month. This took over from a service that had previously been provided by Worcestershire County Council.

It is intended that the new bus which is larger will come in useful as people use the services to do their Christmas shopping and have larger items to bring back with them.

The buses are driven by a team of seven volunteer drivers and more are needed.

“If we are going to continue the expansion then we will have to find more drivers,” said John Driver.

People who want to volunteer will have some training and will undergo a driver assessment but because the vehicles are classed as mini buses they do not need a public service vehicle license.

Scheme like the Tenbury Transport Partnership have become increasingly important as local authorities reduce the subsidies available for bus services in order to cut costs.

However, there are restrictions on the ways in which group’s like the Tenbury Transport Partnership operate and the main difference is that they cannot pick up passengers at bus stops.

The services have to be pre-booked by telephone.

Funding is also an issue and this is one of the reasons why the Tenbury Transport Partnership has taken on charity status which makes grants and other support easier to access.

The services provided by the Tenbury Transport Trust do not benefit from any public subsidy and so have to cover costs. However, they so not carry the overheads of conventional bus companies like having to pay the drivers.

A pot of £25 million has been made available from the Government for community based transport but this has to be spread across the country.

John Driver says that the buses and cars provide a vital lifeline to people who do not have their own transport and who would otherwise find themselves effectively isolated.

To book the bus and for information about the timetable people should call 01584 810136.