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Derbyshire County Council have issued the following consultation document:

Community transport consultation goes live

29 July 2015

Local residents can now give their views on our future plans for community transport services.

Earlier this month county councillors gave the go-ahead to consult on new proposals for some of Derbyshire community transport services.

Views on future plans for the county’s Dial-a-Bus (DAB) ‘shopping’ buses and aCTive travel services to healthcare appointments are now being encouraged.

The consultation can be completed online at our Community transport consultation page. Consultation questionnaires are also available from all of the county’s community transport schemes and local libraries. The closing date for responses is 13 September 2015.

We must make cuts of £157m by 2018, which means community transport services must be reviewed.

Last year we proposed to withdraw all funding from April 2016 − a total of £1.4m – for DAB and aCTive travel services.

But following feedback from a survey carried out last year which identified shopping journeys as the most important to community transport users, it has revised its proposals.

The new proposals are that:

• Every community, town or village, will get a weekly bookable, door-to-door service to a nearby town centre or supermarket. This may be different to the current service, for example it may run on a different day, at a different time or by a different operator
• The flat-rate return fare of £2 for Gold Card holders could increase to £3
• Our funding for the aCTive travel service is withdrawn. Unless other sources of funding can be found this means the service will stop. Or if the community transport schemes can afford to carry on the service the cost of a journey to passengers may increase.

DAB services − better known as shopping buses − are currently provided by Derbyshire’s six community transport schemes. They are for people who are unable to use mainstream public transport because of mobility difficulties or because they live in rural areas where bus services are limited.

Currently, depending on where passengers live, they may have several trips a week to different shopping destinations which may be to a town centre or supermarket.

We also support community transport organisations to run aCTive travel journeys for individuals needing to get to GP surgeries, hospital, clinics and other healthcare appointments.

Councillor Dean Collins, Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Infrastructure, said:

“Our proposals for future community transport services are based on feedback we got in an earlier survey which is why we know how valuable the shopping bus service is to people.

“We want to make sure that every community, town or village continues to get a weekly service to a nearby town centre or supermarket but no final decisions will be made until we’ve heard what people think about our plans.”