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'The longest journey starts with a single step', if it wasn't the Budah who said it, he should have done. This project to get some form of affordable transport to the Parish has taken a very long time to put in place, but it was worth the wait..
One of the many disadvantages of living in a rural area is transport. Because more and more essential services are now being centralised to the larger towns, private transport becomes more & more necessary. Public transport gets either too
expensive to use or as is the case with the present bus service to Charing & district, just plain inconvenient. With low regularity, service times which don't match those services that it is needed to meet. Now with the Government determined to reduce the present rail services effectively to zero, some form of alternative transport was needed. So the germ of an idea was born.
Full of enthusiasm, I, along with others tried, to find the relevant financing to support such a project as a village mini-bus service. It soon became apparent that the money that many politicians spoke off, just did not exist, or more to the point was not being made available to rural communities. It also became clear that just one Parish Council on its own would never be able to swing such a project alone, others were needed.
After some professional research was carried out, it soon became apparent that other villages in our area had the self same problems. Lets join forces. A joint committee was set up consisting of members of the relevant Parish Councils. That selection
procedure put together just what was needed to get the job done. A person with
transport knowledge, a financial expert, someone with experience within the motor industry and expert at guiding committees in the right direction. Put them together with the final piece of the jigsaw, and it all fell into place, his name is Trevor Skelton. This quiet gentleman and his lap-top, has helped people all over Kent find the right financial aid for projects off all kinds. Part of his valuable skills is filling out the
correct application to the right people to find the finances tailored to our project. Eight different financial sources plus the Parish Councils and we were go for launch.
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