Shake-up for area's bus services

BUS services in a rural part of the Suffolk Coastal area may change as a result of a county-wide review of services.

A tender process for subsidised services around villages in the Saxmundham, Leiston and Aldeburgh areas is under way at the moment.

The county council says the results of the tender process are likely to be known by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

It is unclear yet what combination of services will be put in place, but the county council said where services were being used they would be trying to make sure those travellers continued to be catered for.

The new services are due to come into operation on April 7.

Meanwhile, bus operators First Eastern Counties, which runs a part commercial, part subsidised service in the area has registered the hourly service it will be running on a commercial basis between Ipswich and Leiston, Saxmundham and Aldeburgh from April 7. Other services it may offer will depend on the results of the tender process.

"We have been out to tender on a lot of services throughout the whole of the county and one of them is in this area," explained Suffolk County Council's public transport manager Mitchell Bradshaw.

"We are looking at the service we run and we are still out to tender on that and we are still looking at options."

Parish councils were aware they were putting those services out to tender, he said.

"Unfortunately, right at the moment I can't give you a detailed answer as to what those services will be."

There were several ways they could end up catering for the area around Aldeburgh, Thorpeness, Leiston, Saxmundham and surrounding villages, but that would depend on the results of the tendering process, he explained.

"If people in communities are using public transport, we don't want them to go without it, and we are desperately looking at ways of filling the gaps," he said. "We'll get that information out as soon as we can."