Shops and Buses in Corsham Villages Comes at a Price

By R_Ferrier | Wednesday, April 07, 2010, 15:36

Corner shops and better buses would mean more housing: do you want that in your village? Living in rural villages just outside of Corsham can be a hassle when there are no local amenities in walking distance. Few or no buses also mean getting to the town centre is a struggle. Places like Biddestone, Hartham and Gastard have to do without a corner shop, inhabitants visiting the main town or going further afield for their shopping.

Should the surrounding fields in outlying Corsham villages make way for more houses to support corner shops and more buses?

Councillor for the Gastard Ward, Rod Taylor spoke about why it is an issue in his village and what could be done about it.

He said: “There’s a dilemma for Gastard really, in that public opinion is that we don’t want anything in Gastard. We don’t want any more houses, but what we’d like is a shop and the whole thing is contradictory.

“People want services but they don’t want more people and only more people will support the services. It’s difficult really,” added Mr Taylor, “We haven’t got a school and we haven’t got a shop.”

Commenting on the “infuriating” bus situation for Gastard, where one bus comes at 10.30am and another later in the afternoon, he said: “You can’t use it to go shopping or go to work. It’s completely useless as a service. It’s exactly the same as the train service in Melksham. There’s one train at 6am in the morning and another at 8pm at night.”

Though the bus service in the centre of Corsham is very efficient, we’re left to our own devices in the villages.

“If there were six buses a day going through Gastard into Corsham do you think anyone would be on it?” Mr Taylor continued: “All we can do is make sure the buses coming through Gastard stop.”

Should we have more housing in rural areas, meaning we could have local shops and more buses or would you rather keep the fields and vast stretches of land that give these little villages a kind of country charm? I know which I'd choose.

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Comments

Yes the No 10 Service does go through Katherine Park but there are no bus stops. Apparently it is a 'Hail and Ride' service - but how many people know that?

By NickKeyworth at 18:15 on 09/04/10
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I used to live at Katherine Park and watched empty buses pass by the window every half an hour!

By Bonnie333 at 12:13 on 09/04/10
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Supposedly there are buses that now go through Katherine Park (the 10C I think) - more than there used to be when I lived there!

Brilliant blog response! With the options on routes we could go down, I don't think anyone would want to pay higher prices for the buses. Each time I use one of the buses, the price has gone up. Yes, only by a few pence or so, but it builds up! It's cheaper to go by car half the time, especially if you split the cost of petrol or parking with others with you. "Stricter agreements with bus providers" does sound like a good option, but like you wrote, it's not that easy.

By R_Ferrier at 09:17 on 09/04/10
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Off the buses!

The assumption that 'better buses would mean more housing' is a very strange argument in my opinion. Read my full response on my blog: tinyurl.com/yc8q2br

I am glad Mr Taylor has quite rightly referred to the deplorable No72/73 subsidised service from Corsham to Melksham which goes through Gastard. There are virtually no timetables or bus stops along the entire route, local residents have reported the service to be unreliable and sometimes failing to turn up, and if you go to the traveline website: tinyurl.com/le5my7 the service does not even exist! Combine that with a published timetable (if you can find one in Gastard) which offers a very fragmented service. There is little wonder the passenger numbers are low with the perception of a service which is next to useless.

And this is a subsidised route where the local authority uses taxpayer’s money to foot the bill to provide for this service. But remember that most of our bus services are UNsubsidised. This makes it even more of a ‘free for all’ with a completely deregulated system in which virtually anyone can set up a bus service to run wherever or whenever they like.

Strangely, I bumped into Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport in Corsham High Street today and asked her what she would do to change our failing deregulated policy on bus service provision – I reminded her it was a measure brought in by the Tories under Margaret Thatcher. I was told that the conservatives would support partnerships between local authorities and bus providers so they could talk to each other. Rather a simplistic solution I thought!

As for the 'better buses would mean more housing' statement we started with you only have to look at Katherine Park to see that more housing has nothing to do with better buses – there is not a single bus stop in sight!

By NickKeyworth at 00:43 on 09/04/10
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I live in Gastard and enjoy living in the countryside surrounded by fields. We moved from a large housing estate, paying a high price for a smaller house because of the location. If you want buses and shops stay in the town and leave the countryside alone.

By Bonnie333 at 15:59 on 07/04/10
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