Yate bus station - keeping up the pressure

On Friday Claire Young (on the right in the photo) joined other Focus councillors and council officers at Yate bus station to discuss how to tackle the remaining problems. You can read more on our sister blog.

Outline drawings for new shelter at Yate Bus Station

This week the Yate Focus Team received outline plans for the new shelter at Yate Bus Station, so that you can see where the new shelter might go. Click on the links for the seven-bay version http://www.paulhulbert.org/focus/gullwing7bay.pdf and the six-bay version http://www.paulhulbert.org/focus/gullwing6bay.pdf.
Unfortunately there's nowhere near here with this particular model, but here's a photo of one of these shelters at Treliske Hospital in Truro http://www.flickr.com/photos/74784995@N00/2297231948/ - there are others at Heathrow, Manchester and Leeds.

It has been confirmed that the design has been developed to provide a level of vandal-proof protection, and it should be covered by the Yate Centre CCTV system.

The Yate Focus Team are awaiting some details on seats and have requested these along with quotes for the shelter and the signage.  When Yate Town Council discussed the outline plans earleir this week they asked for lighting proposals and details about the CCTV coverage.

Do you travel to Yate by bus?

If you travel to Yate by bus, you will probably have been following the saga of the appallingly designed new "bus station". South Glos Council are asking for your comments on three options but they are lacking in detail and don't address some of the key problems, such as the lack of shelter and poor seating. The Yate Focus Team would like to hear your views on the plans - find out more on their blog.

Yate bus station - sign our petition! But who will pay?

If you've taken the bus to Yate recently, you'll probably know that the new bus station needs a radical redesign. The Gazette reports that Tesco is keen to have a permanent indoor shelter, just across from where its new megastore is under construction.

The problem is that this would cost £40,000 to £60,000. Yate Town councillor Chris Willmore, who has been leading calls to have it rebuilt, said: "As soon as it opened we held an emergency meeting with representatives from First Bus, the council, shopping centre owners Dominion and Tesco"

"Rather than focus on which of them was responsible for this mess, we urged them to focus on finding a solution. Tesco and Dominion were committed to getting a solution quickly. The council unfortunately started talking about the fact a change would need planning consent, which would take six to eight weeks"

"People before technology"

Cllr Willmore talked about the complaints from people getting soaked while waiting for the bus. She said "Interactive bus signs should be here in April but we have warned the council that if they end up putting in that expensive technology before they have got the basics right, like shelter from the rain, they will have to account to the public. The public quite rightly want to be dry as their first step"

South Glos Council has said that that they are waiting to hear from Tesco or the shopping centre owners Dominion about options for a redesign.

Click here to sign our online petition to sort out Yate Bus Station, or join our Facebook group.