Over 35 attendees joined our first ever Rural Mobility: Pilot to Practice webinar today. Hosted in tandem with our neighbouring sub-national transport body, Peninsula Transport, the session took an in-depth look at the challenges, successes and lessons learned across four rural pilot transport schemes we supported with funding.
Why do we need more rural schemes at all? Staggeringly, 33% of the population in the South West live in rural areas. A lack of transport options means that 87% of journeys are made via car, compared to the 67% in urban areas. Many of the population are elderly, and bus stops are scarce when compared to cities. Amongst other factors, it’s a no brainer that we need to do better for our rural communities.
We shared our vision in the webinar, which is: “By 2040, rural mobility will have transformed physical and digital connectivity and accessibility, levelling-up our countryside and coastal communities – leading towards a basic universal level of accessibility for our countryside and coastal residents and visitors.”
We then explained our roadmap to achieve this vision, looking at digital connectivity, reduction of journey time, integrated transport, improved rural links and decarbonisation.
And on our way to achieving this, presenting the rural mobility pilot! Because out of the strategy, we created a pilot prospectus with Peninsula Transport to turn the vision into a live programme of pilots. Between us, we have contributed £210,000 towards the projects. With 10 pilots in total, six have been funded by us and four have been funded by Peninsula Transport. The webinar took a look at the first four, which began in 2024:
- Forest of Dean District Council
Here we heard from Simon Richards from Forest of Dean Council. The pilot scheme aimed to provide low-carbon car hire and shared transport, including a mobility hub in Coleford and an e-bike hire location.
- Bodmin and Lanivet Rural Community Bus
Here, we heard from Barry Cornelius from Lanivet Parish Community Centre, as he talked through a community bus around Bodmin and local villages in Cornwall.
- Bridport Town Council
Caroline Pearce from Bridport Town Council took us through pilot for a low-cost, frequent, weekend shuttle bus service between Bridport and West Bay to reduce car dependency.
- Gloucestershire Community Rail
Madison Moon from Gloucestershire Community Rail Partnership, highlighted the importance of Demand Responsive Transport, highlighting the pilot scheme to engage local communities with the Robin Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) to open up access to green spaces.
It was also great to hear from an STB a little further afield, Sharon Payne from Transport East STB, who talked about rural mobility on a National level.
So what is beyond the first round of pilots? Grants were awarded to a second round of pilots earlier this year, which is currently in progress. Watch this space for more developments in rural transport.
