A PACKED meeting in Stratton Village hall showed the strength of feeling there is locally in the village on the lack of a bus service.

The meeting, on Wednesday 17 September, was organised by Dorchester Transport Action Group (DTAG), campaigning residents who feel strongly about the need to improve the transport infrastructure for everybody, including people who walk, cycle and ride as well as car, bus and train users.

At their annual open meeting in June at the Corn Exchange, Dorchester, one big area of concern was on the lack of public transport in villages surrounding Dorchester.

The situation in Stratton came up strongly at the meeting so DTAG agreed to organise a local meeting to see if enough local residents were prepared to get together and see what could be done.

Stewart Palmer, Chair DTAG, addressed those present saying "There needs to be realism about campaigning to get a bus service in a rural area (it took the community in Martinstown many years to successfully get a service).

"What Stratton could really do with is the reinstatement of the old 212 service, but the chances of getting that are in all honesty pretty slim. 

"However, that's not to say that getting some sort of service is impossible and you might also want to explore other options at the same time, like car and lift-sharing schemes which work very well in other rural areas."

The first job for the group is going to be assessing exactly what sort of bus service local people want, finding out what they would need it for and checking that they would actually support and use it.

More than 40 resdients attended the meeting.

This could include canvassing adjoining villages - Frampton, Grimstone, Bradford Peverell. A campaign to get a bus service would need to start by showing a real need and demonstrate that people would use the service.

Les Scarth, DTAG supporter and campaigner for the Martinstown bus, talked about some of the things they had done to show need and demand and what had worked best like the e-mail and letter blitzes and door to door surveys. 

William Gibbons, the DTAG lead for buses, said "We can help you get a campaign going and share our collective experience. Dorset Council does have £4m of new money for things like community transport, but as always it will be about priorities, so you need to make your case and make it the best case."

At the end of the meeting 22 of those present gave their contact details saying they could help form an initial core group to get something going. DTAG will arrange a follow up meeting for them within the next few weeks.

Residents can email DTAG at: [email protected]