A NEW plan to create a community transport service for a village set to lose all of its bus services later this year has been revealed to parish councillors.

Sadberge Parish Council agreed to support the plan for the Sadberge Community Transport Limited, or SCTL, which has been mooted by parish clerk Alastair Mackenzie.

The new service, dubbed the ‘Scuttle’, would involve using volunteer drivers and taxis to take elderly members of the community without cars to doctors appointments and supermarkets in Darlington once or twice a week.

Sadberge will be the largest village in the borough to lose all of its bus services when the services come to an end in December, after subsidies for rural services are withdrawn by Darlington Borough Council.

The council is working with an independent consultant to come up with a viable, community-led service for the borough, including parts of the west end, but residents in Sadberge have become increasingly concerned that a wider service would not be good enough for the village’s needs.

The council agreed last month to start work on a back-up plan in case the borough-wide plan was not satisfactory, and have now agreed to seriously look at a way Sadberge could support its own transport needs in future.

Mr Mackenzie has come up with an initial scheme, which he hopes will operate at least twice a week, during off peak hours, to provide essential services to the small number of older residents in the village who would be stranded without a bus service.

Services will be operated similar to a timetabled taxi service, where people book their seat in advance, and a standard charge will be paid for each journey made on the service.

SCTL will be registered as a charity and as a private company, run by a board of trustees, not by the parish council.

Mr Mackenzie said: “I believe this has a chance of working. It draws on the particular circumstances of Sadberge - most of the population of the village have cars, with a small minority who need support. The use of taxis is an option, and people who can drive will fill the gaps. We only have to get people four miles into town for doctors and shopping.”

A public meeting will be held in Sadberge later this month to find out more about the needs of people in the village and to determine if the initial ideas for the bookable service will work.

Mr Mackenzie has admitted the service is likely only to work between 9.30am and 4.30pm and will not be able to provide help for people who rely on the bus to get to work every day.

It is hoped that SCTL will eventually be self-funding through fares, although £30,000 of funding for transport in the village is ringfenced for the community from the development of St Andew’s Park, which could be used for the start up operation.

Parish council chairman Lee Tate said: “There is a lot more work to be done on this but the initial proposal is very well thought out. It’s not the finished article and it needs work. We need to move forward with this.”

The proposal has also won backing from ward councillor Brian Jones, who said: “The issues for each village in the borough are so diverse that I don’t think the consultants will be able to come up with a one-size fits all scheme. I think Sadberge may be best served by doing its own thing.”