November 2021 - Firsdown Parish Council

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CTSW-Community Transport South Wiltshire

26th November, 2021/in Local Events, News /by firsdownpc

CTSW is an established Salisbury charity that focuses on providing door-to-door transport for people who would otherwise find it difficult to get out and about.

A huge factor in reducing the quality of life for elderly and disabled people is not being able to get around. Many cannot afford taxis or reach buses and have no other means of transport available.

CTSW provides a lifeline and helps relieve the loneliness and isolation of those unable to get out and about from their homes. CTSW makes it possible for them to do the things that most of us take for granted, trips to the shops, an appointment at the hairdressers, the doctors or simply visiting family and friends.
Without CTSW, many people would be confined to their homes. The majority of people we help are elderly, frail, or disabled, we always endeavor to help anyone in genuine need.

CTSW operates a variety of scheduled ‘Shopper Bus’ routes, within Salisbury and surrounding rural areas, no route is the same each day. Most routes are weekly.

All our services are personalised, we collect you from your home, help you on the bus and make sure you are secure in your seat.

For more information refer to the attached leaflet or contact details are listed below

If you are interested in using our Shopper
Buses or any other service we provide,
pick up the phone and speak to one of our friendly staff who will be pleased to discuss your needs.
Call CTSW on 01722 414 566

Attachments

Total Attachments: 1

Download: CTSW - 2. Shopper Leaflet v4 (1 MB)

Wiltshire Public Transport Cuts, December 2021

25th November, 2021/in News /by firsdownpc

Through trains from London to Trowbridge and Bradford-on-Avon are being
withdrawn next month. The direct service to Warminster is being reduced to
just one a day. Other service reductions by both South Western Railway and
Great Western Railway next month effect Tisbury, Grateley, Salisbury, Dilton
Marsh and Westbury. Most of the trains withdrawn have been very busy and
offer through journey opportunities, journey time choices and crowd-busting
capacity into Clapham Junction and Waterloo, into Bath Spa and Bristol, and
on journeys within the county. For example, seven services are lost from
Salisbury to Warminster and on via Westbury, each day.

There has been no consultation on the changes. and a strong letter of
protest has been sent formally by Wiltshire Council amongst many other
complainants, who see this as a perverse step. It’s an odd thing to do at a
time when people should be encouraged to use greener public transport in
lieu of private cars where appropriate. With Wiltshire’s Bus Service
Improvement Plan looking to improve connections from the buses (which
provide a lifeline in many of our parishes) into our trains, it’s not much
good if the trains people want are not there!

If this affects you even at this 11th hour please write to your MP. There is
a template letter at http://www.passenger.chat/mpletter.html .

There is also, a petition running at
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/598397. We have over 6,000
signatures already and the depth of feeling is being noticed.

We only found out about the cuts from deep inside a document from another
area, about plans for 2023 which said services from our area would be gone
by then and were not up for discussion! A Freedom of Information answered
last month, last month shows an internal decision on minimal data and has
large sections redacted. They would appear to refer to other services under
the threat, but we don’t know which they are. Whilst there ARE services that
could cease to run, it would be a dangerous precedent to allow them to go
without local input – so even if you and your parish are not directly
affected by this current cut, please consider signing to help us avoid an
easy precedent being set for the culling of train and bus services at the
behest of “Whitehall”.

There’s much more information available online at http://www.passenger.chat
and an up-to-date (well, yesterday!) summary at
http://waterloo.savethetrain.org.uk/stat_20211122.pdf .

And, thank you, for giving this matter your attention.

* Co-ordinating on behalf of six rail user groups
* Vice Chair Melksham Transport User Group