Summit meeting to be held on "complete mess" new Yate bus station

If you've travelled into Yate on the bus recently, you will know what a mess the new bus station is. Your Focus Team is fighting to get it sorted. Lib Dem Councillors have called a meeting tonight of everyone involved in the fiasco.

Yate Town Councillor Chris Willmore explained the aim was to get a commitment from all the key parties to put a solution in place as soon as possible. "As residents, as soon as we saw it, we knew someone had dropped a serious clanger. It is completely useless, it will not shelter anyone, is not lit, has no seats elderly or disabled people could use, only a few benches, has no timetables, has no sides and no shelter, the bus station layout is awful  - need I go on? They have banned coaches and community transport from using it as well, and finally it is too small so buses sometimes cannot even get into a bay."

She added, " At this stage, I want to get everyone together and find a conclusion. The time for working out who is to blame comes later, right now, passengers need solutions not inquests."

At a Transport Forum in Thornbury last night Chris and the Yate campaigners won the first step in trying to get a solution when South Gloucestershire Council accepted the new bus station in Yate is a complete mess and promised to send senior officers to the summit. Tesco, who funded all the works have agreed to come.

Even First Bus has offered to attend. "First Bus has offered to come to the meeting - things are that bad. They have assessed the bus station too and have identified issues."

The campaign to get a solution has now received support from as far away as the Regional Passenger Focus HQ in Plymouth: who offered to get involved. But Chris commented, "I hope common sense prevails this week. The current bus station  is so obviously useless."