By the time you read this the Chew Valley CIC Sustainable Transport Partnership will have submitted two separate bids to WESTlocal: one for enhancements of the existing WESTlocal X91 Chew Valley Sprint and the other for a brand new service (which we can disclose more about next month.)

From the recent ‘Imagine The Future’ survey, which 421 of you replied to (thank you!) and conversations we have had with many on and off the X91 bus, we know that people are very pleased with this newly introduced timetabled service. We also know that you want it to do more.

Part of our ‘ask’ of the funders is that they consider running it twice in the day from September, rather than the single return journey on offer now. In particular this would link people with different work patterns and caring responsibilities to travel a bit later or return home earlier.

The WESTlink trial, designed to get people from the south of the Chew Valley (where we had evidence of demand) to and from the Bishop Sutton stop, has not worked well. For that reason our second ask is for the X91 route to begin earlier and take in East and West Harptree and Compton Martin before it heads to Bishop Sutton.

In the meantime, we are applying for other funding to try to get a regular minibus service from these villages to feed into the X91 until September. Please fill in this form to help us assess demand: https://forms.gle/hUFHhxbnSBHqoxDv9

Please do keep trying to book WESTlink connections, if only to put the new zones through their paces and tell the operators and those contracting the service what the problems are. For more information on WESTlink, visit: https://travelwest.info/westlink/

Of course we have no guarantee that we will get what we are asking for. One thing is for sure though, if the demand for the X91 as it now stands continues to build across the Summer months then this is a persuasive argument for trusting our projections and funding the next phase.

Please do get on board if you can; for work, study, a shopping trip or a link to buses, trains or coaches to take you further afield, and if you have any questions then please do get in touch by emailing [email protected]