New bus aims to restore community’s link to centre

POLITICIANS and city leaders came out in numbers yesterday as a new bus service launched in Bristol to replace one that fell victim to cuts.

The new number 25 bus will run from the Eastgate retail centre and Tesco in Eastville, through St Werburgh’s and St Paul’s, into Broadmead and the city centre.

It has been set up by bus company Transpora Group, and replaces a couple of services that have been dropped by Bristol’s biggest bus company First Bus West of England. First has been gradually cutting the bus services through St Paul’s and St Werburgh’s in recent years.

In October 2022, it axed the number 5 route that went through that part of town and out to Downend, despite a vocal campaign against those cuts. The number 5 was partly replaced by a new bus, the number 47, which only went out as far as Eastville. But the Post reported back in February it would also be dropped by First Bus in the latest round of cuts, with the bus company saying there weren’t enough passengers to make it commercially viable.

London-based Transpora Group stepped in and said they thought they could make it work.

“After the withdrawal of route 47, we noticed that this left the communities of St Paul’s and St Werburgh’s

no connection to Bristol city centre, so we started route 25,” a spokesperson said.

The route started at the beginning of April, but had its official launch yesterday – Friday, April 14 – with Bristol West MP Thangam Debbonaire, council transport chief Cllr Don Alexander, local councillors including Eastville’s Cllr Marley Bennett and members of the community in St Paul’s and St Werburgh’s all getting on board.