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00:00Very good morning to you people of Somerset. It's Daniel Mumby, your local democracy reporter.
00:06You join me on an overcast, somewhat muggy day in Castle Green in Taunton Town Centre
00:12and it's new star attraction, one of 26 new electric buses that are entering into service
00:19in Somerset from the beginning of April. And we're going to be giving you a sneak peeve
00:23view of all of these fantastic services that are going to be entering in. We're going to
00:28quickly take a little 360 tour of the outside of the vehicle and then we're going to head
00:36up to the top deck and show you what's what. Now, like I say, this is one of 26 vehicles
00:40that will be entering service across a range of routes in Taunton and the surrounding area
00:45from April 1st, operated by First Bus, with central government funding being provided
00:52to put in the charging infrastructure and we'll be giving you some more information,
00:58like I say, very shortly about how much of a difference these services are going to make.
01:03But right now, let's go on board and actually show you around. Wheelchair accessible, of
01:08course. There are plenty of bus enthusiasts and members of the public milling around.
01:14We're going to head up to the top deck where it's a little bit quieter and possibly see
01:19some familiar faces. Good morning, gentlemen. Fancy seeing you two here. David, would you
01:28mind sitting close together? Some people who have seen our live streams in the past may
01:33recognise these gentlemen, but if you're new to Somerset Live, please introduce yourselves for
01:37our live stream. I'm Councillor Richard Wilkins and I'm in charge of transport at Somerset Council.
01:45My name's David Northey and I'm from the Somerset Bus Partnership and one of the leads from the
01:50Taunton Bus User Group. Wonderful. Richard, let's start with you. Obviously, this has been in the
01:54work for an awful long time. Tell us about the difference that these electric buses are going
02:00to make to the people of Taunton and elsewhere. Well, they're brand new, which makes a huge
02:05difference, as you know, so hopefully we'll have a much better reliability on the bus service.
02:11It will be quiet, but it will also be greener, so we won't be polluting the air and it will be
02:19very nice for everybody to travel on, nice and quiet, and the facilities on this bus are incredible.
02:26We've got USB charges for every single person, the new style C as well as the old style,
02:34which I think is great. It will just make a huge difference to the people using it.
02:40Obviously, Somerset Council's been putting a lot of money into keeping existing bus services going
02:45and putting new routes on as part of its bus services improvement plan, of which this is a part.
02:51Can you talk us through the sort of thinking of how electric vehicles fit into that in terms of
02:56both reliability of existing services and looking further to the future? Well, to be fair, the first
03:05group which own these buses have put in a considerable amount of money of their own
03:10into this, which really shows that they're committed to Somerset, and that makes a huge
03:15difference for the people that are using it to know that we've got a bus service which is here to stay.
03:23And obviously, like I said before, it's a smoother ride, it makes a huge amount of difference.
03:28The bus company has been talking with the bus partnership to understand the needs of the
03:36passengers, which is the most important thing. Excellent, we'll come back to you in just a moment.
03:41David Northey, this must be a momentous day for you as someone who's been lobbying for improvements
03:46to bus services, particularly in Taunton in recent years. Just talk about what this means for you and
03:50your members. Well certainly, as you're right Daniel, it's a big thing for Taunton as we've
03:54had some of the oldest bus fleets in the whole of the country for a long time.
03:58And as Richard mentioned, one of the biggest problems we've had is reliability, and because
04:04of the problem with the older fleet and breakdowns, it's really had an effect on passenger numbers and
04:09passenger confidence. So this is a real good thing for the residents of Taunton and for the residents
04:16of Somerset, that we get brand new buses which will bring reliability, fantastic quality,
04:24you know, that we've not experienced for a very long time. So it's going to be transformational
04:29for the users in Taunton, Wellington, Minehead, Bridgewater, and the town services around Taunton as well.
04:38Yeah, we will give you a rundown of all the services in just a moment, but
04:42again, to sort of put in perspective, because you have been lobbying in particular with the
04:46housing growth coming on the edges of Taunton, about the need to connect those up with public
04:51transport, and one of the routes that's going to be served by this is the new Orchard Grove
04:55estate being built on the west. Can you talk a bit about that please? Yeah, so the new 20,
04:59the electric buses which are going to the 22 route will start going into the new park and ride at
05:04Orchard Grove, which will give a real step change for the people that live in those new houses and
05:10the development at Commage Row. I think the service is going to be every 20 minutes right
05:15throughout the day, and that again will be another transformational leap in sort of
05:20park the car there, take the greenway into town by taking the electric bus, you know, and that's
05:26real significant. I think it ties into our whole sort of garden town status as well, so it is
05:32really transformational. I can't really express in words how different it's going to make bus travel
05:39in Somerset, where these routes will have EVs, buses on. Excellent. Richard, just on a final
05:46point from you, one of the other big improvements coming to Taunton's bus services is the former
05:51bus station site near here on Tower Street is going to be turned into the new transport hub.
05:57Just give us an idea of how far off we're that from becoming a physical reality, because the
06:02site has been empty for so many years and I think people are impatient to see that realised. Yeah,
06:06absolutely, and we understand that people just want to get it over the, you know, over the line.
06:11So we've done the design work and we're virtually shovel ready to get started on this,
06:20and, you know, we'll be looking to implement it as soon as possible. These things do take a little
06:26bit of time, there's historical reasons why we have to do things in certain ways, but we will
06:35get there and it will be great to see buses once again serving the transport hub, the new transport
06:42hub, which will be a real focal point for Taunton. Yeah, and we should point out that the funding to
06:47create that comes from central government, this is not borrowing on the council's credit card.
06:53No, absolutely, we put in bids to central government and the money is there to build
06:59the transport hub, which will make such a huge difference for Taunton, and as you said,
07:05the garden town. Yes, yeah, and that whole integration between all the bus networks
07:10coming together and people making that seamless transfer between buses is going to be the sort of
07:16gain, another bonus for the whole bus network if we can get that to work. Excellent. Well, before we
07:22leave you gentlemen in peace to explore the rest of the top deck yourself, if I just pass you one
07:25of those, why don't you give our readers an exact breakdown of the routes on which these new buses
07:31are going to be served. You can alternate or do whichever way you like. We'll start with the
07:36one route, which is the Taunton, Highland and Priorswood route, which is every 30 minutes.
07:43And there's the 1E, that's the evening bus, which runs to Silk Mills, Musgrove Park,
07:48Huffordore, Taunton and Purland. We've got the 4, which is Taunton, Wheatley Crescent
07:55and Lane Estate, and that will be an hourly bus. And then the number 6, which will be hourly,
08:02that serves Hull Way, so that's Taunton to Saith Road, Juniper Road, Normandy Drive and Wordsworth Drive.
08:09We've got the 7, which is Taunton to Galmington, and that's every 45 minutes. Then we've got the 21
08:16and the 21A going to Burnham-on-Sea via Bridgewater and Highbridge from Taunton, and that will be every
08:2335 minutes. And then we've got the exciting one, which is the 22, 22A, X22 and 22C, it's a bit of
08:31a mouthful, which will serve Taunton to Rockwell Green, Wellington, Tone Dale and Tiverton, and
08:39that's every 15 minutes. To Wellington with some limited extensions to Tiverton. And then finally
08:48the 28 and the 28A, which are the Taunton Minehead routes via Bishop Lydiard, Wooliton and Watchit,
08:55which serves the station at Taunton, and that's every 40 minutes. But these are weekday services,
09:01it's different on a Sunday, some routes have Sunday services. Yeah, that's brilliant gentlemen,
09:06and I love the image of an electric bus going alongside a steam train up to Minehead.
09:11Wonderful mixture of past and present technology. You'll see that in bits of the route.
09:15David Northey from the Somerset Bus Partnership and Richard Wilkins from Somerset Council,
09:19thank you very much for your time. Please stay tuned to Somerset Live, we're going to go downstairs
09:23and chat to someone from First Bus, and if you want to check this out in person, this vehicle
09:28is going to be staying here until one o'clock this afternoon, and you can check out for yourself.
09:34Like I say, we're only able to scratch the surface in terms of the facilities on offer here,
09:40and the quality of craftsmanship that's gone in. Right now, we've just got a short wait to
09:45disembark, and then we'll be hunting down someone in a high-vis jacket.
09:49And like I say, the full list of services that was read out just there by those two kind gentlemen
09:55upstairs, we will include that in our coverage of this. It should be pointed out that not all
10:01of the buses are double-deckers, because I know that on the 28 route to Minehead,
10:05there are a number of low bridges that people aren't afraid to point out. So,
10:12yeah, just bear with us for a moment whilst we wait to disembark. I don't particularly want to
10:16try and clamber out of the window. And here's hoping that when these do enter services,
10:22they're kept as immaculate as they are now. We are surrounded by a large number of journalists
10:31and bus enthusiasts here on Castle Green, which is, of course, an area still very much in active
10:35use. You've got the Museum of Somerset just in the background there, people coming to local
10:40businesses to make deliveries. So, we are working things around as best we can.
10:50Looks like they're going to let us off in just a second. If you do have any questions as we're
10:55going through, do drop them in the comments. And if we don't get them to immediately, then we'll
11:01get to that very soon. So, we've now disembarked back on to Castle Green. Just worth pointing out,
11:15the former bus station site in front of us now, it's a site that closed in mid-2020 after first
11:22bus, so they couldn't continue operating it. It served as a vaccination centre at the height of
11:27the coronavirus pandemic, which, is it just me, or it feels like ancient history in so many ways. But
11:34that site will be transformed as part of the council's bus service improvement plan.
11:38We're hoping it'll be open for business by the end of the year. But right now, if we're able to,
11:46I'm just going to try and grab a chat with someone from first bus and see if we can actually talk
11:53about this from a more commercial operator perspective.
12:00Thank you very much. You're live on Somerset Live. Could you please introduce yourself for our
12:03audience? So Ellie, we've been talking to David Northey from the Somerset Bus Partnership and
12:10Somerset Council about what this means from a sort of public perspective. But talk about
12:15first bus's commitment to these new services and what this means for you today.
12:23Hello, I'm from Somerset. They're brand new buses, they're clean, and it's a really fantastic experience for us bus drivers and our passengers.
12:38Excellent. Now, these buses are going to be charged from your depot on Hamilton Road,
12:42which was recently upgraded. Do you have any rough figures about the range of these vehicles,
12:46like how far they can go on a single charge? I believe they can go about 200 miles.
12:54Yeah, but there's no risk of running out of juice on the top of Exmoor or anything like that.
13:01In terms of this investment in Somerset, because one of the complaints we often get is that
13:05when government funding or private investment comes into buses, it tends to go into the cities
13:10and Somerset and other rural areas miss out. But investment like this is so welcome for
13:14rural areas and talk about the difference that will make.
13:23And just finally, obviously a lot of the services that are entering service from
13:40April in Taunton serve the western side of the county. Are there any aspirations to roll out
13:46similar services more in the direction towards Froome, Shepton, Mallet and the eastern side in
13:50the future, if these prove successful? No problem. Thank you very much indeed for your time.
14:05And like I say, if you want to come down here and take a look at this in the flesh or in the
14:09electric and steel, you can do so until one o'clock this afternoon. If you've missed any
14:14details of this live stream, it will be available for the next 30 days. So you can scroll back and
14:18forth at your leisure. But in the meantime, this is Daniel Mumby, your local democracy reporter,
14:23wishing you a very pleasant rest of the day. Goodbye from Taunton.