Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Minibuses ‘would end problem of Westgate Towers’
Long-suffering bus users are demanding new Stagecoach minibuses be rolled out in the city to replace lost services through the Westgate Towers.
Traders and residents say a fleet of “little and often” Mercedes vehicles, due to start operating in Ashford this month, will fit through the medieval arch, returning crucial services to the St Dunstan’s area.
Since the ill-fated Westgate Towers traffic trial was scrapped in 2013, Stagecoach stopped routing its buses under the towers, claiming the vehicles were damaging the masonry.
Services running into the city centre from the north now travel along London Road and Rheims Way to the bus station instead, missing out St Dunstan’s and St Peter’s Street.
Stagecoach later brought in route 27 to serve the area, but campaigners say it does not go far enough.
Debbie Barwick, who runs Revivals in St Peter’s Street and the Canterbury Independent Traders’ Alliance, says the Stagecoach minibuses would solve the problem.
“We need them instead of big, often empty, double-decker buses which can’t go through the towers,” said Ms Barwick, who spoke with county transport chiefs about the issue at a select committee meeting on Thursday.
“Some buses run to St Dunstan’s but they are not regular.
“Before 2012, buses would drop off 100 people an hour by St Dun- Debbie Barwick, from Revivals
stan’s and St Peter’s Street – that’s 800 people in a working day. Shops up this end are feeling the impact. .
“People are now being taken straight to Whitefriars. If they want to come to St Dunstan’s they have to walk or catch another bus.”
City councillor Jean Butcher (Lab), whose elderly father lived on the London Road estate before moving to a care home, agrees minibuses would help.
“My father used the bus all the time,” she said. “When it stopped running, he couldn’t walk all the way from the bus stop on Rheims Way so he never went to St Dunstan’s again. .”
A report is being drawn up by a special select committee looking at bus services and routes across Kent.
Chairman Alan Marsh, who also chairs the Canterbury joint transportation board, says different examples have been discussed, including minibuses.
“Everything that has been spoken about has been included in a select committee report, which will be made public in about three weeks,” he said.
Stagecoach spokesman Matthew Maytum said access to that part of Canterbury has improved considerably over the last year, with up to six buses an hour into St Dunstan’s Street and North Lane from Whitstable, Blean, the University of Kent and Hales Place, and buses every two to three minutes in the opposite direction.
“In Ashford these minibuses run on local short routes into the town, routes serving St Dunstan’s street are far busier and come from further afield.
“There would need to be five times as many buses to cater for our customers, this would neither be environmentally acceptable nor economically viable.”
He disputed the minibuses would fit through the towers: “In order to meet legislation and to safely accommodate wheelchair users, buses now exceed the advertised width restriction for the Westgate Towers; this also applies to the minibuses.”