Saving the NUMBER 65
When they discovered that their bus service, the No 65, was going to be cut in 2018, the residents of Monmouthshire in Wales took matters into their own hands. They formed the Friends of the 65 Bus group and then started a petition to convince the county council to keep it going.
“The bus used to go off-route to do a school run twice a day, but the children it was picking up and dropping off had left school four years earlier,” explains member Jane Gilliard, “so we persuaded them to reroute the bus. Some villages saw a
40 per cent increase in services.”
The group has also created timetables for each village, as well as “time in town” journey planners that suggest when you can get the bus from certain places to allow you to have enough shopping hours. Locals can follow a Facebook page, too, where drivers and passengers share updates on delays.
The group is trying to get the bus approved as a ‘Walkers are Welcome’ vehicle. “The accolade [issued by a community-led network led by Kate Ashbrook, vice-president of the Ramblers] is usually given to towns for providing places where you can visit in muddy boots, but we want it to apply to transport,” Jane explains. The group wants to turn the rural bus journey from functional into an adventure – and not because you might get stranded if the return bus never comes. Find out more about this successful grassroots campaign at friendsofthe65bus.org.uk.