The Park & Ride run by the Bridgnorth Chamber of Commerce from April to the end of September 2015 is a success . Although in the very first week in April (at 9.30am ) we had one passenger on the 16 seater coach ….oooer… We thought . We have made a Horlicks of this!
Then at around 10.30am in the first week the passengers began to come in and a queue started for the bus and we were up and away.
Because it was going to take some weeks before all the paperwork, routes etc was finalised we were put in a position that although we wanted to start the Park & Ride in April we couldn’t charge for the ride into town. The project team then had to come to a quick decision ….should we delay the project until we could charge passengers or should we start the Park & Ride and try and find sponsors to fund the project for a few weeks until it was legal to charge £2 a car.
Project member DD was set to work and after a series of phone calls and visits to acquaintances and business colleagues, to our surprise we found that our sponsors were funding 12 weeks of the project . At a committee meeting in June it was decided that the Bridgnorth Chamber of Commerce would fund the remaining weeks till the end of September. This meant that the ride into town and back from the Auction Yard would remain free.
Marshalling at the Yard was not originally envisaged by the team. It gradually evolved…there were lots of questions…not just about the frequency and times of the coach but questions about Bridgnorth Town itself. Where to go…what to do….we asked ‘ do you know about the Cliff Railway? ‘ ‘ Do you know about Severn Valley Railway ?’ ‘Did you know there is a market in the Hogh Street’ Later in the day we had to make sure the passengers knew that the last bus from town was at 4.00pm and that the driver had to have a break between 1.00pm and 2.00pm so there would be no service.
From the beginning it was found that only a small proportion of passengers were actually from Bridgnorth. Out of a coach of 16 passengers there would be perhaps 2 or 3 Bridgnorthians the rest were from the West Midlands: Norfolk: Hereford : Shrewsbury Scotland everywhere ……and they say they turned into the Auction Yard because they saw the signs ‘Free Saturday Park & Ride’ . Leaflets were handed out to passengers as they got on the bus, these were designed and funded by a member of the team, they gave details of the coach departures and arrivals and names of the sponsors .
It was a great help that the Salop CC found funding for the signs, These were simple A frames that were attached to an existing pole or fence It was not an ideal situation because the initial idea was for the signs to be put up and taken down every Saturday This turned out to be a lengthy, dangerous and expensive option so we breathed a sigh of relief when we negotiated with the council who allowed us to leave the signs up for the duration of the project. More permanent signs have been ordered and paid for by the Council next year that will be erected by a professional.
Now…the sponsors ….to put it simply . The free Park & Ride simply couldn’t have happened without you. It is gratifying that businesses in the town wrote cheques for the project. We try to help by directing the passengers to the businesses that helped us ….. ‘Go into Tanners Wines- Keith Alderson is under the Town Hall- pop into the Travel Wallet ‘ We estimate that an average load per Saturday is 150 One week we had 190 passengers, on rainy days it’s less than 100. So far we reckon that we have transported 2000 into town so far , some of them are children, some of them are couples but if even 1500 spend only a tenner each that means there is £15,000 going into the Bridgnorth economy that might otherwise have landed up in Wolverhampton or Kidderminster . Our passengers come off the bus back to their car loaded with bags so something must be working
We need more sponsors …..if you or a group of friends or a business would like to sponsor a Saturday or even part of a Saturday please get in touch. (editor@bridgnorthtowncrier.co.uk or go to the Bridgnorth Chamber of Commerce website and follow the ‘contact’ button The cost of the coach and the driver is £240 per Saturday . Please help us to keep this project free
