For a mere 15-seater, the 210 holds a lot of different meanings. For its operators, it’s “an ice-cream van”, running from Witney to Chipping Norton through five villages in west Oxfordshire that are otherwise starved of public transport. For passengers it’s a lifeline, either saving them from spending their pension on a minicab or – for the young – begging parents for a lift. It’s a new service run by and for a community that has been stripped of scores of bus routes.
On 20 July 2016, Oxfordshire county council scrapped all subsidies for bus services. The devastation was instant: that same day, 54 routes stopped altogether, while many more were reduced.
Frantic tin-rattling raised the 18 grand that bought an old bus, and at the start of 2017 West Oxfordshire Community Transport (WOCT) was on the road. From the start [local Labour councillor Laura] Price wanted the venture to be a co-operative: “We need people to understand they’ve got a stake in making it work.” Anyone paying a quid can be a voting member, drivers get a proper living wage, and whatever profits might turn up are reinvested in the business.
After just 16 months, it not only breaks even, it’s expanding. The fleet has gone from one to four buses (none less than 10 years old). The town service runs “like a Swiss watch”, says Lyons, and throughout our chat his eyes barely rise from the smartphone app that keeps tabs on their progress. Other villages kept petitioning WOCT to run a service for them, so this February it began the 210 to Chipping Norton.
