THE announcement of a government strategy which aims to improve bus services, has been welcomed by Dorset Council and a local transport group.

The new national bus strategy hopes to do more to make bus services in local areas across England outside of London, more affordable, frequent, convenient and environmentally friendly.

The Department for Transport said that it wanted every local transport authority and bus operator in England to be in a statutory enhanced partnership or a franchising arrangement, using existing powers in the Bus Services Act 2017 - £25 million has been made available straight away to develop these.

These new partnerships will be asked to produce a Bus Service Improvement Plan by the end of October 2021 to set out a roadmap to better services for passengers and communities, urban and rural, and be fully informed by local needs.

Bob Driscoll, chair of the West Dorset Western Area Transport Action Group (WATAG) said that local bus services in more rural and western parts of Dorset had been "very savagely pruned in the last few years" and that the council had been driven by the financial success in cutting them, rather than taking into account the importance access to public transport is as a social service.

He said: "The fact that central government is taking this issue seriously is to be applauded."

The aims of the WATAG is to maintain and improve transport in rural West Dorset.

Mr Driscoll said: "Over the last 12 months Covid has changed everything quite dramatically. At the moment people are actively discouraged to use public transport. So, as and when the lockdown ends, there's going to be quite a job to persuade people to start using public transport again. But the situation pre-pandemic with the bus service was not much better.

"It's not just for people who don't have a car. If we're going to tackle all the environmental problems, we need people to move away from making the car their first choice for transport."

He added: "We used to have a very reasonable service which was subsidised by Dorset Council and what is now the X51 (formerly the Number 31) used to be an hourly service between Weymouth and Axminster via Dorchester, Bridport and Lyme Regis which ran Monday to Saturday and that started early in the morning and could easily connect people to train stations in Dorchester South, Crewkerne and Axminster so that they can go further afield to places like London.

"You can't expect the same frequency and convenience of public transport that you get in more urban areas just because the volume of people isn't there. But what we need is the ability for people to not be trapped."

Sue M McGowan, Head of Dorset Travel, said: “We welcome the announcement but we are waiting for more information before we can understand the impact for the residents of Dorset. We are intending to refresh our Public Transport strategy in line with this new national strategy. We look forward to exploring how we can deliver a feasible transport service for those living in rural areas.”