Focus of work
ACTion with Communities in Cumbria (ACT) is a charity that champions community and rural issues. In 2018, FIT funded ACT to lead a small partnership to frame the co-design of investment proposition that would help enable the creation of a community-scale sustainable integrated model of transport in rural Cumbria. This partnership included representatives from local community transport, a health trust and progressive sustainable transport specialism, formalised through the establishment of the Cumbria Mobility Network CIO.
The CMN was based on a set of ideas, observations (often of what holds back progress) and principles that emerged from early engagement work:
- Solutions needing to be self-sustaining beyond initial set-up support
- Developing a clear philosophy for solutions, identifying what can and cannot be achieved; not starting our conversations with ‘buses’ (whilst acknowledging that these
may form part of a solution) - Commitment to the concept of ‘Total Transport’, making best use of currently
available capacity - Taking advantage of the current political window of opportunity, noting refresh of the
County Council Local Transport Plan - Maximising opportunities from the council’s new limited direct provision of Home to
School and Adult & Social Care transport, potentially utilising spare capacity during
non-core working times - Taking advantage of the considerable expertise and access to resources, including grants within the County Council, coupled with their willingness to support and guide local work,
- Ensuring that any new schemes do not take passengers away from existing services
- Explicitly linking different revenue streams and costs
- Capitalising on some non-people-carrying opportunities to create possible revenue
streams - Recognising that demand and supply mapping exercises are fraught with difficulties at ‘large scale’ (e.g. county wide), but that at ‘community scale’ are eminently feasible
- Supporting development of community-scale initiatives, with demonstrable and
essential ownership and economic resilience - Creating opportunity for partner buy-in including new types of operators
- Recognising the need to value and reconcile work at both community and county
scale, including their inter-relationship, in order to deliver all elements required for
creation of a sustainable model - Creating approaches that are potentially scale-able and/or translatable
- Recognising that approaches should both enable journey-by-journey choice and
support broader lifestyle shifts in how people get around
Impact
Due to the significant disruptions of the Covid pandemic in spring 2020, CMN delivery
basically failed in terms of how the phases were planned. In the immediate aftermath of the
pandemic, local government re-organisation (leading to two unitary authorities in 2023)
meant that the capacity of the transport authority was limited on these issues.
However, there is evidence that there are significant changes in understanding and ambition for community-scale integrated transport across the county. Whilst difficult to attribute cause (of the CMN) and effect, the following community-led initiatives have subsequently emerged:
- Kirkby Stephen Town Council progressed its broad community engagement on
access and transport in partnership with the Upper Eden Group (2022). This led to
demands for a one-stop-shop for transport information in Kirkby Stephen, a complete overhaul of the online local transport information, plus the revival of the X5 bus service between Kirkby Stephen and Kendal. Ridership of this service has significantly increased. - Sustainable Integrated Transport for Ullswater was established 2020 as a partnership between resident and business community groups. SITU has produced a progressive medium-term integrated transport vision for the Ullswater valley with ambitions to make it a beacon for car-free travel. Impressive delivery has already included the development of the Penrith-to-Ullswater Way, enhancement of the bus networks (with risk being under-written buy local businesses), including the development of the new UB1 seasonal bus service. In March 2026, SITU hosted Community Transport Conference in partnership with ACT.
- Wasdale Community Panel was established in 2023 to address how visitors can add to the valley, with transport and parking being major issues being addressed.
- Two vision-led community-scale transport initiatives received enthusiastic local support: I Get Around in Staveley and the Greystoke Bus.
- The development of the Transport for the Lake District initiative is partly in response to a groundswell of demand for transformation in access and transport locally. This did not exist before the Covid pandemic.
ACT and partners continue to work on transport as evidenced above, and the FIT investment provided an evidenced based process to build on.