New buses to ease Shrewsbury College student transport pain
Shrewsbury College has increased its bus services in response to the challenges facing young people with increasing bus pass prices and reducing service routes.
The College decided to add a third main subsidised bus route for students to its existing two routes after Shropshire Council ran a consultation on proposed bus fare rises on student transport.
The results of the consultation, which ended in May, meant that the cost of travel for students aged 16 and over will increase from £550 to up to £876 per academic year – an increase of around 60 per cent to be phased over two years.
Principal of Shrewsbury College, Steve Wain, said the consultation had come “very late in the year” when most students had already decided which College they wanted to attend.
He said: “Shropshire is a very rural county and some of our students have to travel a long way to get to College – some of them have to use up to three different bus passes to get here so this increase will affect them greatly.
“We worked with any affected students and their families and decided to add an extra subsidised route to the existing two we run already.
“We know that retention issues and poor attendance are linked to poor transport and where we support students with buses, we have a much higher attendance rate.
This is a very important issue for us and transport should not be a barrier to education. We are also putting more money into bursaries to help more people access and attain an education with us.”
In July, the College received it’s best ever Ofsted rating of Good. On the issue of transport the Inspector’s report said: “The high cost of public transport locally is a significant barrier to ensuring students are present in lessons, although the College has been extremely successful in improving attendance of a small cohort of students for whom it has been able to issue subsidised bus passes.”
The College routes will be:
• Bridgnorth/Telford/Shrewsbury route
• Powys bus route covering Welshpool/Newtown/Oswestry
• NEW Wrexham/Whitchurch/MarketDrayton/Shawbury/Hodnet/Battlefield/Shrewsbury
In addition there will be a new College minibus shuttle service from Shrewsbury town centre bus station to College every morning between 8-9am and each evening between 4-5.30pm in response to changes to the Arriva bus service coming out of town.
