A COUNCILLOR plans to knock on the doors of 300 households in Wellington to ask people if they would like to see the town have its very own bus service.

Cllr Steve Mercer, of Wellington Town Council, has been leading the way on an idea that the area could do with its own hyper local bus service.

He told members of the council’s policy and finance committee on Monday, August 12, that he would be looking to carry out a survey of local people to find out if they would support the introduction of an electric bus service in the town.

“A statistically reliable survey depends on gaining a response from a certain number of people and for a town such as Wellington this requires a door to door visit to about 300 households,” Cllr Mercer said on behalf of the council’s town bus working group.

He said he would randomly select the 300 homes and carry out the survey at his own expense.

Cllr John Thorne said: “This seems a lot of work for one person.”

But Cllr Mercer responded: “I’ll send round a plea for help nearer the time, but I fully believe in this and I’m prepared to do it.”

Committee chairman, Cllr Mark Lithgow, said that councillors needed to support Cllr Mercer’s efforts without actually pinning the council’s colours just yet to the mast of getting down to the nitty-gritty of investigating more fully a possible council-led bus service.

“If there’s a proposal to look at the plan to start a bus service in Wellington we need to see whether it’s feasible,” he said. “We can’t say at the moment if this plan is feasible, but we should look to see if it’s viable, wanted and needed. And if the sums don’t stack up – they don’t stack up.”

Cllr Lithgow added: “At this point in time I’d expect everyone’s full backing of what is being planned and only after that can we start asking serious questions about how we’re going to afford it.

“People are welded to their cars, but to convince them to use public transport we’d need to show them that it’s an efficient, reliable and affordable service.”

It is an ambitious project which has eye-watering financial sums attached to it. A report which went before town councillors earlier this year mentioned a £1-million price tag, although Cllr Mercer explained that that would be the start-up funding required if they wanted to go for a major scheme with electric buses and the council having its own depot and servicing facility.

Cllr Mercer is adamantly clear that that full scheme is not possible in Wellington, but is equally insistent that with an increasing population an improved system of public transport would become a bigger issue.

He told councillors on August 11 that he estimated that the total amount of money spent on car parking and fuel by each household in Wellington - based on two trips a week to the town centre - would amount to around a whopping £300,000.