Nine organisations are to share £106,530 to help them continue to provide community transport in Oxfordshire.
Oxfordshire County Council is awarding the grants, ranging from £2,730 to £21,000, to fund drivers, operating costs, recruiting and training volunteers and promotion.
Councillor Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport Management, said: “Oxfordshire’s community transport sector is a lifeline to many people. The grants will make a big difference to all nine organisations and help them to continue the fantastic work they are doing.”
The recipients, who will receive their grants over two years to support continuation of their schemes are the Volunteer Driver Service, covering north Oxfordshire; OurBus Bartons; Vale Community Impact; Cholsey Volunteers; West Oxfordshire’s Volunteer Link-Up; Didcot Volunteer Drivers; Yarnton Care Committee; Wallingford Volunteer Drivers; and Weston-on-the-Green Parish Council.
OurBus Bartons, which serves the Bartons and its surrounding areas, received £20,000 to help promote its services, including its new electric vehicles, which were paid for by the National Lottery Community Fund.
Richard Brown, Chair of Trustees of OurBus Bartons, said: “We are delighted to receive this grant as it will allow us to maximise the way in which we will use our new electric buses as they settle into service.
“We are one of the first community transport operators to use electric buses on timetabled services. We won a national UK Bus Award for our innovative approach working with our community.
“These buses are supporting our services from Middle Barton to surrounding towns, our commuter services to Heyford Station and to Steeple Aston, to connect to the Stagecoach services to Oxford and Banbury. The difference in the quality of the ride and the level of sound is appreciated by all our passengers.”
Community transport is part of the voluntary sector and plays a key role in filling gaps in service where public transport is not available. It helps provide safe, accessible, cost-effective, flexible transport run by the community for the community in rural and urban areas.
Community transport can include car clubs, community minibuses, dial-a-ride, lift shares, taxi shares and voluntary car schemes.
Some groups offer services just for their members, while others are open to the public. They can take disabled people to work, children to school, sick people to healthcare and older people to the shops. Some run local bus routes and provide transport for a wide range of clubs and other groups.
The council supports the development of not for profit community transport groups and services.
Small start-up grants to help groups in their development are available, while the council can also help with the cost of training volunteers as minibus and passenger assistants.
(Picture – Oxfordshire CC)
