Shropshire bus campaign

Shropshire is a county that has historically been poorly served by public transport. Although heavily rural, it is within commuting or day trip distance of a major metropolis (Birmingham) and dotted with towns and villages large enough to support decent public transport. Between 2017 and 2019, FIT funded John Whitelegg to carry out two research projects related to buses in rural Shropshire. These projects aimed to use case studies from Germany, Switzerland and Sweden to show that with more effort applied to the design, planning, organisation and funding of rural buses, this level of quality could also be achieved in a typical English shire county.

The Shropshire bus campaign and project concluded with six key recommendations, summarised below:

1. Shropshire Council should increase its bus support budget.
2. The increased funding for improved bus services should be linked to an increase in the diversity of operators.
3. Shropshire Council should invite bids from town and parish councils for specific improvements to bus services and use this increased level of funding to adopt a rolling programme of improvement based on the bids over the next 10 years.
4. Shropshire Council should adopt the Cornwall bus policy based on the Bus Services (2017) Act and adopt the “single ticket” model.
5. Shropshire Council should deploy the same financial skills that were used to provide £20 million of funds for the North West Relief Road and provide funding for a new bus station in Shrewsbury, much improved Park and Ride in Shrewsbury and Ludlow, real-time information systems for Shrewsbury and Ludlow bus services, a single-ticket offer covering all bus services in the county irrespective of which operator provides the service and much increased bus shelter provision.
6. Shropshire Council should jointly fund (with the NHS) a fully electric bus, free to use, from Shrewsbury bus station, every 10 minutes (including Sundays) to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH).