A NUMBER of public transport schemes could be introduced in Bentham.

The Craven District Transport Partnership has linked up with the Bentham Development Trust to develop three schemes aimed at helping those without access to a car to get out and about. These are:

o A taxi top-up scheme involving a local taxi operator contracted to operate a number of regular scheduled services, including a shopping service to Lancaster for older people, trips to the dentist at Settle and a late Friday night service from Settle for young people.

o An after school activities minibus scheme catering for pupils at Settle high School who live in Bentham and cannot currently join in after school clubs because it would mean missing the school bus and being unable to get home. The minibus would bring them back to Bentham after the activities at school.

o A social car scheme whereby people with cars would volunteer to give lifts to those without transport on pre-arranged journeys.

The schemes were put to a public meeting in Bentham last week and received broad support, although there were some concerns.

There were feelings that the taxi top-up might fall at the first hurdle as there were not enough taxi operators in Bentham who could give time to do contracted service, said Rural Transport Partnership officer Giles Bond.

It was also felt older people may require a passenger escort who would take up space in the vehicle and therefore put up the cost to the user.

Mr Bond said it was also feared that putting on a service to the dentist might weaken the chances of Bentham acquiring a permanent dentist.

"The after school minibus proposal is simply to put on a minibus from Settle to Bentham to run pupils," he added. "It should not be a problem to find a minibus, but we will need to find a volunteer driver. The difficulties of finding a driver was highlighted, but apart from this people thought it was a good idea that could work."

The social car scheme would involve a local pool of volunteer drivers available to take people on journeys with their expenses reimbursed.

Mr Bond said: "We are worried that a car scheme could become over subscribed and that it could be detrimental to the taxi market. Therefore we will be applying quite strict criteria to its use."

The Craven District Transport Partnership has £250,000 to spend on sustainable passenger transport schemes aimed at reducing social exclusion.

Mr Bond added: "Although £250,000 may sound like a lot of money, provision of passenger transport in rural areas is very expensive, therefore the partnership is looking to develop small scale schemes which use existing resources and require community involvement."

The partnership and the trust carried out a survey to see how many people there were in Bentham with transport needs.

About 300 people - around 10 per cent of the town's population - returned their questionnaires and the survey revealed 18 per cent of people had no or rare access to a car.

"There's no problem not owning a car if you have adequate access to a decent public transport system. However, rural areas like Bentham usually have scant public transport. This can make it difficult to access services and facilities and these people may experience social exclusion," said Mr Bond.

Anyone interested in helping to get the schemes up and running, act as volunteer drivers, help in co-ordination or sit on a steering committee should contact Mr Bond on 01756 706221 or Lin at Bentham Development Trust on 015242 61030).