Hartley Wintney Community Bus Service

For more information on any of the bus services please contact Mandy Smith the Bus Administrator on 01252 849712 ( Monday to Friday 9am - 1pm) or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

 

Our current services include timetabled shopper services on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday which now go to and from Winchfield Station and enable rail travellers to catch trains for off peak train travel to Waterloo on those days. This service also serves Hook, Yateley, Frogmore and the Meadows as well as Hartley Wintney.

We also run a Saturday timetable service which goes to Camberley as well as the Meadows from Hartley Wintney, via Yateley and Frogmore. All of these services are able to take concessionary fares. This means that holders of a bus pass with be eligible to travel free of charge.

The fares for paying passengers remain unchanged at £1.00 per single journey within Hartley Wintney and £2.50 per single journey outside of the parish.

Every Tuesday and Thursday we offer door to door services to Fleet for limited mobility users. We also run a once a month door to door service to The Meadow and Basingstoke on a Friday. The vehicle will also be available for local groups and voluntary organisations to hire outside of the normal operating hours.

Commuter services to and from Winchfield Station run seven times per day Monday to Friday and remain unchanged at £1.00 per single journey and this service does not offer concessionary travel. 

Development of the project

At the time of conceiving the scheme in 2010 there was a regular bus service to Winchfield Station, Basingstoke and Camberley although the service was by no means perfect. The concept of the community bus was to complement this regular bus service as well as providing a more tailored demand led package which responded to local need and catered for those with limited mobility or who were denied access to regular services. Then in October 2011 this service was withdrawn by HCC and residents were left without any service to Winchfield Station or direct service to Odiham or Basingstoke. A replacement service (no. 100) was introduced which offers limited opportunities to travel to Camberley and Hook Monday to Friday. This changed the dynamic of the Parish Council’s proposal as it became critical to re-instate some level of service for the local community, many of whom had become stranded as a result of the cutbacks and removal of Service 10.

Hampshire County Council were keen to listen to the proposals but were unsure how to respond. A number of issues arose primarily around the fact that no other Parish Council had suggested such a project. There are a number of community buses in operation but they are generally run by volunteers and specialise in door to door or “Call and Go” style services for those who cannot access regular services.

HCC have a duty to ensure that developer contribution funding is used correctly and needed to create a number of policy documents to give parameters to the scheme. The Parish Council in turn needed to produce a firm business plan, indicative timetabling and costings and then had to become a HCC approved provider for transport services. The cost of the scheme over 5 years was estimated at £325,000 of which £246,000 would be coming from the S106 agreement (The rest funded by fare income) and the value of the project meant that HCC had to go out to competitive tender.

Two and a half years after the initial idea was conceived the contract for the community bus service was finally approved by Cllr Kendall, Executive Member for Environment and Transport and Deputy Leader of the Council on 22nd January 2013. The service will start on 1st May this year.

Aims Of The Community Bus Service

• To make public transportation available to all residents of the community as well as a range of local organisations within the Parish who would otherwise not have access to transport.
• To provide a value for money, not for profit scheme with long term rewards for the Parish and its residents.
• To provide better access to services and reduce isolation and social exclusion faced by some in the community, particularly those in outlying areas.
• To provide better access to local services for those who are disabled, have limited mobility or sensory restriction that makes it difficult or impossible to use existing bus services.
• To provide a scheme which in the longer term can be self funded and continue beyond the initial funding provided to HCC by Barratt Homes as a result of the developer contribution .
• To make local transport adaptable to the ever developing needs of the community.