New Accessible Vehicles Handed to Community Transport Operators

Green Community Transport and Four Towns and Vale Link Community Transport have both received the keys to their new accessible vehicles on Thursday 3^rd June from officials at South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA).

Each of the three community transport groups in the authority received two brand new Peugeot Boxer minibuses to use for their local services. The new minibuses are equipped with Euro 6 engines and will replace some of the oldest vehicles in the operators’ existing fleets, helping to reduce harmful emissions, as well as lowering fuel consumption and reducing ongoing maintenance costs. 

The new vehicles complete a fleet of fifteen minibuses provided to South Gloucestershire’s community transport operators. SGC secured £740,000 of funding for the vehicles in 2019, which comes from the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership through the Local Growth Fund, administered by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA). The funding has been used to purchase six new Mercedes Sprinter minibuses which were delivered to the operators at the beginning of March 2020, three Nissan E-NVs (electric vehicles) that were delivered in August 2020, and the delivery of these remaining six Peugeot Boxers completes the handover.

During the pandemic community transport groups have continued to provide a limited service for essential shopping, medical appointments and emergency deliveries of food parcels and medicines.