'I've not left home for weeks': delight as community bus for vulnerable residents returns to West Lancashire
It is more than a month since the service was lost.
A community transport service for vulnerable residents in West Lancashire will restart next month after a new operator was found to provide it.
West Lancashire Dial-A-Ride closed at the end of June, with just a week’s notice given to its users.
The not-for-profit organisation had offered a door-to-door bus service to elderly, isolated and disabled locals for more than 30 years, ferrying them to shops and other facilities in the borough. It was aimed at people who were unable to access public transport or lived in areas where there was none available, but folded after citing funding issues.
However, the Lancashire Post can reveal that the residents who relied on the service will soon be able to get back on the road.
The charity Little Green Bus, which runs a similar operation in Ribble Valley from a base in Clitheroe, has now agreed to expand into West Lancashire. It will begin serving the district once a week, on Mondays, from 7th September.
Users will once again be able to book a place on a wheelchair-accessible minibus, which will offer low-cost, scheduled journeys to destinations in the borough. It is not yet clear whether West Lancashire residents will have access to the Little Green Bus’s community car facility, which takes passengers on bespoke trips to medical and other appointments, a service that Dial-a-Ride also used to provide.
Lancashire County Council says it intends to continue subsidising the community transport arrangements in West Lancashire at the same level it did previously.
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Eighty-nine-year-old Richard Forbes - who had used Dial-a-Ride for the past year, since giving up driving - told the Post he had not left his Ormskirk home in the five weeks since the service suddenly ceased.
“I’m really looking forward to it coming back,” he said. “I used it to go into Ormskirk to do my shopping and it was a very good service.
“I can’t really handle taxis. The drivers of the bus used to help me off with my bags at home, whereas taxis just tend to drop you off and you have to [look after] yourself,” added Richard, who stopped driving after his eyesight began to deteriorate.
His Manchester-based granddaughter Martha said the Dial-a-Ride drivers offered just the right degree of support.
“He is very independent for his age, but sometimes he just needs that little bit of extra help.
“The older generation are often invisible to younger people and sometimes, if he got a taxi [home], they would just ring him and say, ‘We're outside’ - and he'd then have to try and find them halfway down the road. It was just a very stressful experience for him.
“Also, there was the social side to being on the bus. He made loads of friends, including neighbours he’d never met. It was a really good thing for him and a lot of other people in the community,” Martha said.
Lancashire County Council provided West Lancashire Dial-a-Ride with around £110,000 during its last full year of operation - more than a quarter of the total £405,000 the authority hands out annually to help subsidise community transport across the rest of its patch.
The Post understands the Burscough-based organisation had already received £71,000 from the authority for the three quarters of its contract year that had been fulfilled until its closure on 30th June.
Separately, West Lancashire Borough Council had granted £48,000 of its tranche of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to West Lancashire Dial-a-Ride in the past two years.
The organisation said in a statement to its users shortly before shutting down that despite its “best efforts to secure ongoing financial support”, it had been “unable to obtain the funding required to continue to provide the service”.
Warren Goldsworthy, Lancashire County Council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, said of the return of community transport to West Lancashire: "We know the closure of West Lancashire Dial-a-Ride has been a worrying time for many residents who relied on the service.
"Since the closure was announced, we have been working closely with community transport providers to identify ways of supporting residents and maintaining access to essential journeys.
"We welcome the confirmation that Little Green Bus will introduce a weekly Dial-a-Ride service in West Lancashire from 7th September, providing an important transport link for local people.
"This is a positive step and we will continue working with the community transport sector to explore longer-term opportunities to support residents in the area."
West Lancashire Borough Council and Little Green Bus were also approached for comment.
Little Green Bus acts as the lead operator within the Lancashire Community Transport Network, whose services are delivered under contract, on behalf of the county council, by the Community Transport Consortium.
Other consortium members include Preston Community Transport and Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Council for Voluntary Service.
None of the county’s other community transport services have been affected by the closure of West Lancashire Dial-a-Ride.