Finally, after a long process, we have lost our evening bus service. The parish council did try very hard to get some form of service, but the amount of money available to run an evening bus was not great and the figures for the usage were very low. What is left of this consultation was the request for the last bus from Swindon, a Salisbury Red X5 service to Pewsey only, to run around the village of Chiseldon, as they did a few years ago, coming out by the farm shop. The parish council have tried, and are looking into, a community car transport scheme, or a link scheme, similar to other villages around Swindon. We are looking for a group of residents to run such a scheme. For the time being, there is a bus service to the GWH, Thamesdown 1 and 1A, that runs up until 10pm and a local taxi firm from Chiseldon village, Movealong Radio Cars (07500 118323), is willing to pick up passengers from the hospital and transport to anywhere in Chiseldon, at a fare of £6.60.
During the weekend of the 12/13th August, two of our bus shelters were vandalised. One at the Landmark Hotel and one at the Esso Garage. If anyone has any information of these incidents, please call Wiltshire Police on 101.
It has been brought to our notice, that the bus stop at Draycot Foliat, going towards Marlborough, has become so overgrown that the bus drivers do not see passengers waiting and overshoot the bus stop. We will have a site meeting with SBC Passenger Service Officer to see what can be done, but monies are very short.
We will have three days of roadworks, when the B4005 will be closed from Turnball to the T-junction at Burdrop. This will be from 9.00am on Tuesday 29th August to 6.00pm on Thursday 31st August. This will mean that the current service 81 bus will not be able to connect through to Wroughton. We have no news of what the service will be, so users will need to check the Stagecoach website or Chiseldon Facebook page from next Thursday, 24th August. It looks likely that for these three days we will only have the 80 bus service or people can walk to the main road to catch the X5 which runs hourly. Car users who normally travel via Wroughton, will have to plan an alternative route.
Cllr David Hill
Transport Representative – Chiseldon Parish Council