Community turns sour feelings of transport isolation to sweet success story
1st August 2024
Avonmouth will soon be reconnected to neighbouring areas after the community came together to launch a new WESTlocal bus service.
The new WESTlocal: 40 service, operated by The Big Lemon, has been dubbed the ‘Yellow LAB’ to denote the letters of some of the areas (Lawrence Weston, Avonmouth and Brentry) that it will connect from 2nd September 2024.
Whilst the new service is not a direct replacement for the number 3 bus that lost the Avonmouth section of its route in April, it will offer vital access to important services for people living in some of the poorest communities of Bristol.
Darren Jones MP, who first proposed introducing the new bus route, said: “Even when buses are run by private companies, we should never forget the public service that they offer. In axing one section of a bus route, people lost access to the foodbank in Avonmouth; parents were left struggling with how to get their children to school; patients couldn’t get to appointments at GP clinics in Lawrence Weston and Brentry; and people were cut off from employment opportunities in Avonmouth.
“With such a vital need for a new bus service, I was delighted to learn about WESTlocal – an initiative championed by West of England Mayor Dan Norris – whereby local people are encouraged to design and run their own bus services.”
The new service was a community-wide effort, with Mr Jones reaching out to community organisations to work together to bring about the new bus service – and they all jumped onboard to help: Avonmouth Community Centre Association, Ambition Lawrence Weston, Bristol North West Foodbank, Pioneer Medical Group, SevernNet, St Andrew’s Church and St Bede's Catholic College.
West of England Mayor Dan Norris said: “This is what WESTlocal is all about – the community coming together to create a bus service specially tailored for the needs of local people. I’m delighted that my Mayoral Combined Authority funding will benefit residents in such a positive way.”
Kate Royston, Director of SevernNet, and Peter Evans, Board Director and Transport Lead at SevernNet, took the lead on the group’s bid for funding.
Kate Royston said: “It has been a lot of hard work, and I thank my colleague Peter [Evans] for his dedication to securing this funding bid. But it will be well worth the effort to see the bus service in use and the morale boost it will give to the people of Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston, who often feel cut off and forgotten about.
“I would also like to thank The Big Lemon for stepping in quickly to be the bus provider for the route after Transpora, who had previously agreed to run the service, unexpectedly suspended operations in the South West.”
The WESTlocal ‘Yellow LAB’ will offer a roughly hourly service on weekdays from Crow Lane, on the boundary of Henbury and Brentry, to St Andrew’s Church in Avonmouth, with the first and last south-bound services at 7:50am and 6:00pm, respectively.
To support the school run at the end of the school day, the bus will also stop at St Bede’s Catholic College in Lawrence Weston at 3:30pm and make a one-off journey to Cribbs Causeway. This followed input from the headteacher to the working group about the problems his students were facing with not enough capacity on existing buses to get them home safely.
The new service is one of eight new community led WESTlocal bus services that will start running in September.