SOUTH WYE ESTATES
CELEBRATE INTER-ESTATE COMMUNITY BUS SERVICE

'WyeS Moves' is a brand new community bus service providing inter-estate links in the South Wye area of Hereford. Councillor Peter Harling chairperson of the Herefordshire Council carried out the official launch which took place at the Redhill Golden Jubilee Centre on Monday 20th October 2003. In attendance at the launch was the Mayor of Hereford, Councillor Ursula Attfield, Councillor Chris Chappell Chairperson of the South Wye Regeneration Partnership, Chairpersons of the South Wye Residents Associations, Peter Lewis, Jim Davis, and Dave Maciejewski representatives for the 'First' bus company.

The occasion commenced with a reception followed by a tour of the South Wye estates on the new buses for the invited guests. Then followed official speeches concluding with a lunch specially prepared by Mrs Wendy Jones and Mrs Phyllis Edwards.

Councillor Chris Chappell commenced the formal proceedings by introducing Councillor Glenda Powell,and in his own words said "Glenda has probably put in the most amount of work into getting 'WyeS Moves' together".

The text of Councillor Glenda Powell's speech is below:

Councillor Glenda Powell

"Today concludes four years of extremely hard work, by the Accessible Transport Group, which has been made up of volunteers and agencies working together to achieve a dream, which was instigated by myself. It was a talking point at a South Wye senior citizens club when members there expressed a desire to be able to move around the South Wye estates and not have to go into town for transport to be able to do so. As you can see my dream of four years ago has become a reality. The 'First' transport group has asked me to express their gratitude and thanks to the Herefordshire Council and JMP Consultants for their continued help and support to enable us to achieve our goal. Of course the project would not have been possible without the generous funding from the Urban Bus Challenge Competition and the South Wye Partnership. I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank the community residents associations chairs and representatives, Eva Burton, Audrey Cooper, Wendy Jones, Steve Cole, Mick Lane, Richard Brinton, Will Lindsey and Peter Bamford although he isn't here today. I would like to thank Wendy Jones apart from her work on the project, and Phyllis Edwards who has prepared our special lunch today, also "First Bus" Company for the successful tenders for the contract for bringing our buses here for us to see. But most of all I would like to thank those here present for attending this very special occasion for the community of South Wye.

The new service starts next Monday (27th October) and I know that our local people are eagerly waiting to take full advantage of the many new journey opportunities that are opening up to them. I would now like to ask Councillor Peter Harling Chairman of Herefordshire Council to launch the 'WyeS Moves' Community Bus Service".

Councillor Glenda Powell then invited Councillor Peter Harling to offically launch the new WyeS Moves bus service.
Below is an extract from Councillor Peter Harling's speech:-

"When I arrived and saw one of the buses, I was immediately struck by the colours and information on it, I'm told that this is the creation of the children who produced this as a result of a competition, I must say a big thank you to them.

This is a wonderful thing for the people on these estates to be able to go to the various places. I always say to people remember, use it or lose it. I think this whole project is a real success story when people get together for a cause and promote it in such a way. It's a great privilege to come here today to launch this. I have learned that buses and steps and stairs don't go with walking sticks, but these buses are so easy to get on and off".

Following on from Councillor Peter Harling, Councillor Chris Chappell made this speech:-

"Thank you to you for coming today and indeed to Madam Mayor who of course doesn't need any introduction either because she is one of the ward councillors. It was 1996, when some of us were at the "Ship" Inn, in Ross road and discussed what we would want to do if we got the SRB funding. Almost everybody said we needed a decent community transport service, we didn't say 'bus' we thought 'dial a ride', we thought 'taxis' we thought all sorts of things. I know it's taken a lot of time to get from there to where we are today, but all the best things do take a long time. It's a great privilege to work in a community where people want to be a community.

Glenda has been into this with all her colleagues from the residents associations, and chairmen of the residents associations, but there have been many other people involved, it really has been a community project. So I want to say on behalf of the South Wye Partnership as its chair, to Glenda and to those involved from the community again, thank you very much. I also need to say thank you to the Council's Officers who I know have worked tirelessly, and sometimes I've ranted at them down the 'phone (as if I would) to get this project going, a special thank you to them.

Congratulations Glenda to your team and to everybody else, you heard your chairman mention just now that people need to use it, don't forget that it's a service that we've only got funding for two years specifically, the South Wye Partnership is coming to an end in just over two years, we need them to make sure that everybody uses the service, so we can go forward and say to another group of people in that time, "Its an excellent service and we want you to keep going". So I'm relying on you to use the service. I'll finish now by saying thank you chairman, do come to South Wye again and next time there will be a bus to pick you up for the Hospital for wherever. Thank you very much".