Shrewsbury park and ride buses to run every 10 minutes from February

Shropshire Council is carrying out a review of how the service could operate in the future and a series of improvements are being trialled to find out which of these should be adopted in the long-term.

An every 10 minutes service, as opposed to the current 20-minute service, is being trialled at Meole Brace park and ride until Christmas Eve, and has so far been well-received.

As a result, buses from all three park and ride sites will run every 10 minutes from February 3.

Meanwhile, two different electric buses have been trialled across the town’s three park and ride sites, as the council hopes for the park and ride service to be entirely served by electric buses in the future.

Steve Davenport, Shropshire Council’s cabinet member for highways and transport, said: “We want to have the best possible park and ride service and are carefully considering what changes and improvements we need to make to the current service.

"Running buses every 10 minutes on the Meole Brace service has proved very popular and the trial has gone really well – hence we’ve now agreed that buses from all three Shrewsbury park and ride sites will run every 10 minutes from February.

'A great opportunity'

“As well as changes to the frequency of buses we’re also considering the use of new technology, possible route changes and, of course, the use of electric buses and we hope to announce further positive changes to the service in the near future.

“Transport and how people move around the town is an important element of the Shrewsbury Big Town Plan. The plan recognises the importance that needs to be placed on developing transport solutions, and doing this with park and ride at an early stage provides a great opportunity to build for the future.”

The new initiative has been welcomed by the executive director of Shrewsbury BID, Seb Slater.

He said: “We thoroughly welcome this investment in park and ride which is great news for shoppers, workers and visitors to the town.

“Shrewsbury park and ride service hasn’t ever been as frequent as this and this will make it a much more attractive and convenient way of getting into the town centre.

“We look forward to working with the council on further improvements to park and ride in the new year and helping achieve aspirations set out in the Big Town Plan to transform movement in and around Shrewsbury.”