New bus stop signs (commonly called flags) have been erected in Stapleford in Mingle Lane, Gog Magog Way, Haverhill Road and Bar Lane. These have been privately funded and erected by Steve Edmondson a local transport campaigner from Haslingfield with some financial support from Stapleford Parish Council and the help of John Wakefield from Great Shelford.
John Wakefield
The signs replace old dilapidated or missing ‘flags’ on the route of the number 31 bus service which runs from Cambridge & Addenbrookes via Stapleford and Shelfords to Fowlmere and Barley.
Steve has ongoing plans to also replace other bus stop flags in Great & Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire County Council (now the Cambridge & Peterborough Combined Authority) “does not have a budget” to replace bus top flags and timetables!
Messrs Edmondson and Wakefield would also like to replace missing and life-expired timetable-cases.
Whilst major, commercial, operators might reasonably be expected to install and maintain their own bus stop flags and timetables, route 31 is a supported service, run on behalf of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority by the small, family-run A2B buses. Currently, these supported services are re-tendered quite frequently. Brian Clifford and his staff need to concentrate on running services, not dealing with infrastructure.
John contacted Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s Mayor Palmer, receiving this reply…
Dear Mr Wakefield,
Thank you for contacting me about damaged bus timetable cases in Great Shelford.
The Combined Authority does not have a budget to cover such maintenance, however I agree that this is an important issue.
With your consent, I will forward your enquiry through my office to the Transport Team at Cambridgeshire County Council in order to ask for further information about their position on the issue.
Please let me know if you wish to pursue the matter in this way.
Kind regards,
James Palmer
If we want to get people out of cars and onto buses, the most basic requirement is to ensure that intending passengers know that there is a bus service, where it stops, and when it runs. The provision of service information is the kind of low-cost ‘quick win’, which the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’ Bus Reform Task Force, and the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s Better Journeys group should be considering.
Although Steve and John are to be applauded for this excellent volunteer initiative, it seems scandalous that neither the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority nor the Greater Cambridge Partnership are funding this work.
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