The bus service in the town has developed over the past years and has taken the form of increasing the frequency of the Lynn to Southery route, from a few times a day, up to hourly, and incorporating more residential areas of the town en route. The route to and from Lynn follows the A10 rather than the former slower and bumpier route through Wimbotsham and Watlington.

At the time of the town centre regeneration plan, we asked for bus stops in Bridge Street.

The intention was that the roadway would do a small “kink” into the mouth of the Market Place, to enable a bus stop to be placed on the nearside opposite it.

However, this was changed at the last minute by the authorities and the public toilet block was built there instead.

Subsequently the current bus stop was erected in Bridge Street but is unsuitable because Bridge Street blocks completely when buses stop there. The original planned position would have avoided this.

At much the same time we started a route from Hillcrest via Civray Avenue to the town centre and at commuter times continuing to and from the railway station, with guaranteed connections home from London.

The Lavender Drive/Rosemary Way link through to Bexwell Road was not then open.

The service was modest and consisted of some four or five journeys a day, but it was done to test the potential market with a view to building a more attractive service as has happened in Clackclose, and the Trafalgar Road and Meadowfields Estates in the town.

The six months trial saw very little use made of it, and indeed we received mildly threatening phone calls telling us that residents did not want their area spoiled by such low- grade transport as buses passing through.

We have for a long time been concerned that the way both the Civray Avenue to Hillcrest and subsequently the Lavender Drive to Bexwell Road areas have developed is such that buses cannot easily manoeuvre through the areas.

By law, new buses have to be low -floor (meaning they are much lower than average cars) and this means that the driving characteristics are different, making tight corners, especially with uncontrolled parking, and high kerb edges a real difficulty.

manoeuvre

In the meantime, passenger numbers in Downham have continued to grow, partly because of people over 60 being granted free travel in 2006.

We have had to increasingly use larger vehicles and these certainly preclude serving more and more of the town’s estates.

The problem is that larger low- floor vehicles cannot manoeuvre in Paradise Road and from Bridge Street into High Street especially with parked vehicles at the latter junction.

This has had the effect of fossilising bus route development while town centre issues are sorted out.

For two or three years now we have let it be known that we are willing to double the frequency of the route in Downham.