Consultation Update 06/01/2023

From today, Friday 6th January, the Town Bus service, now operated by North Holderness Community Transport (HART), will be providing a three-day service on a Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Background

Following the withdrawal of the previous operator, BusKing, a year ahead of the contract end, the service had to be reduced to two days per week.

From week commencing 24th October the new provider HART began operating the Town Bus route, two days per week on a Tuesday and Thursday.

A Commonplace engagement took place Monday 17th October – Tuesday 8th November to understand the impact of the service changes and to gain a measure of the future community transport needs of Driffield residents.

The engagement received a total of 302 participants, almost all of which were contributions from paper surveys handed out by members of the Driffield Town Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council Local Growth team to residents using the service.

95% of those who responded stated that they were not happy with the reduction to the service with 73% stating that the service reduction from 5 days to 2 days would have an impact on them personally. Further to these, 78 respondents (26%) declared that they had no other means of transport accessible to them, other than the Town Bus.

The results found that users needed the service 2-3 days throughout the week, most journey times were in a morning with Thursday and Friday’s being the most used days of the week.

Shopping and attending both medical and personal appointments were the main purposes of the journeys made by the service users who responded.

The contributions, made by residents, supported the commitment of Driffield Town Council and the East Riding of Yorkshire Council to review budgets and source additional funds to allow an interim increase from two days to three days through till the contract end in August.

The extra day was arranged as a Friday due to the results of the engagement and the availability of HART.

Thank you to those that contributed to the survey