This morning a Cambridgeshire county council committee has given the go-ahead to its officers to press ahead to the next stage of the council’s Total Transport pilot project in the north of East Cambridgeshire, including Sutton, Little Downham, Mepal, Coveney, Witcham, Wardy Hill, and Pymoor.
There will now be consultation on the scheme, and officers will draw up further plans ready for a decision in May.
The project aims to bring together road transport offered by a range of different organisations: school buses, special educational needs transport, dial a ride, social care transport, and other services. By bringing these together with a single information and booking centre, it is hoped that spare capacity on these services will be able to be used, to offer more transport opportunities to passengers – including residents in Pymoor who currently have no bus services.
I encouraged the committee to support the proposals, and asked them how they planned to decide which of these services would be eligible for concessionary fares. The response was that this will be decided in May, after officers have drawn up various financial options for the different costs of services.