From 2nd of September Whippet Coaches have decided to withdraw a number of their contracted and commercial services. The services affected are as follows:

• Whippet 1, 1A, 2, 3, 5, 7A, 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, 18, 21, 45, 45A, 114, 117, 476, 477, Busway C and U

The County Council has agreed to provide an interim solutions for most of the majority of routes for up to one year. The County Council will be reviewing  current contracted bus services and community transport to see if further efficiencies and alternative services can be made. The County Council Officers will report back to the committee on this work within nine months to allow a decision to be made on the longer term solution with contracted bus services and community transport.

Further details on new operators and timetables, please click here

The Busway Route C service operated by Whippet will be increasing the number of trips between St Ives and Cambridge, Drummer Street Bus Station to provide a bus up to every 30 minutes on Mondays to Saturdays, with earlier and later journeys too. Buses will continue to operate every hour on Sundays, but the gap at midday will be removed so the service is regular throughout the day.  However, Route C will no longer serve Cambridge Railway Station, Somersham or Hills Road/Ramsey Road in St Ives.  Some morning and afternoon journeys will start and finish at Fenstanton, providing residents with their first Busway service to Cambridge and the restoration of a Sunday service.

For the latest timetable, please click here

There will be changes to Stagecoach services in September for the following buses:

Citi 5 - New journey from Madingley into Cambridge Monday to Friday, departing Madingley at 0721 serving Dry Drayton at 0725. The 1811 and 1831 departures from Bar Hill to Cambridge will be serving Oakington and Girton to cover for the last two journeys which have been withdrawn on Citi 6.

Citi 6 -  The 1725 to Oakington will be extended to serve Dry Drayton and Madingley Monday to Friday. The 1823 and 1853 journeys from Oakington to Cambridge are withdrawn. These are replaced by two journeys on Citi 5.
 
Service 9/X9 - Additional journey has been added between Ely Market Street and Princess of Wales Hospital, Monday to Friday. 
 
Service 10 - Minor changes to the timetable in order to improve the overall reliability of the service.
 
Service 11 / 12 - Changes to times.
 
Full details on the new timetables for your area, please click here

This week Lucky Dip prizes were awarded to those participants who took part in the CSP Summer Commuter Challenge over lunch at the Bradfield Centre. Some of the participants were from Auriplex, Cambridge Wireless, Frontier, Johnson Matthey, Schneider-electric, Toshiba and Xaar (refer to the photo above) who won amazing prizes such as £50 M&S voucher, a bottle of Conte Priuli Prosecco, Hotel Chocolat chocolates and much more.
 
If you have been away for the summer holidays and just returned, CSP Commuter Challenge is still running until the end of September. We are encouraging employees who drive to the CSP to leave their car at home and try a sustainable mode such as walking, cycling, bus, train or car sharing to get to work for 3 days. If you are interested and would like to uptake the challenge then please email Prajina.Baisyet@Cambridgeshire.gov.uk for further details.

As part of wider plans to accommodate an increase in trips as Greater Cambridge continues to grow, plans for new ‘orbital’ public transport on the M11 between Junction 14 and 11 and extra Park & Ride capacity to the south of the city are being explored.

The ‘western orbital’ scheme, led by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP), aims to provide new and fast links between key housing and employment centres to the west and south of Cambridge and are set to move forward in mid-September.

It would mean thousands of people who currently have travel through the city to get to work, schools or the main hospitals at Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC), would instead be able to travel around the city on new bus services, by bike or on foot. With expected growth at the CBC site and the introduction of any measures to manage congestion, it’s estimated additional P&R spaces in the south west of the city will be needed in the coming years.

Intermediate steps which will be presented to the Partnership’s Joint Assembly and Executive Board include:

• Park & Ride capacity: A proposal to create more ground-level spaces at Trumpington Road Park & Ride.
• ‘Smart motorway’: A proposal to ask (in conjunction with other local stakeholders) Highways England to consider turning the M11 hard shoulder into a ‘smart motorway’ between junctions 10-14. This would increase capacity and make traffic flow smoother and more safely, with less stop-starts, with the potential to improve bus journeys.
• Junction 11 slip road/s: An update on recent discussions with Highways England to improve the sliproad(s) at Junction 11, with a focus on bus movements.
• Girton Interchange: An update on recent discussions with Highways England for a potential upgrade to the Girton Interchange.

For more information, please visit the Western Orbital project page

People aged 40-60 in the East of England are being urged to walk more after it was found that four out of 10 adults walk for less than 10 minutes continuously each month at a brisk pace.
 
Research from Public Health England (PEH) found over 740,000 middle-aged adults in the region do not achieve this over the course of a month - and are missing out on health benefits. A 10 minute brisk walk each day gets the heart pumping faster, makes you more energetic and improves your mood – and can help prevent cancer, heart disease and poor mental health. According to PHE, people in the UK are 20% less active now than they were in the 1960s and on average walk 15 miles less a year than two decades ago. But the sedentary nature of modern, busy lives makes it difficult for many to find the time for enough exercise to benefit their health.
 
To particularly help those who have an inactive or low activity lifestyle and may find building in  activity into their day challenging, PHE’s new One You physical activity campaign is encouraging adults to build 10 minutes continuous brisk walking into their day as a simple way to improve their health. The free ‘Active 10’ app is available to download and shows how much brisk walking a person is doing each day and tips on how to incorporate more of it into their lifestyles.
 
For more information to help you on your way, visit www.nhs.uk/oneyou/active10