Buses through Easton

As Part of our work with the Lived Experience Experts Panel, we encourage the panel to speak out and campaign on issues in their local community. One such campaign has been sent to us this week. Are you able to help by signing the petition? Do you have your own story of hardship related to Easton?

Easton’s buses still run. Most of the village can no longer reach them.

The Easton roundabout was partly closed on 1 July and removed for good on 3 August, under National Highways’ A47 North Tuddenham to Easton scheme. First Bus Excel now calls at a single temporary stop for the whole village, in both directions. For some homes that is more than a mile away, and the nearest supermarket is half a mile beyond it at Longwater. A new Central Connect service from 1 September will call at Marlingford Road and Bawburgh Road, but Monday to Friday only, six journeys each way, with nothing before nine in the morning or after mid-afternoon.

At a community session on 30 July, households filled in a form about their own circumstances. They reported no car at all, that they could not make the walk to the temporary stop, or could not make it without pain. They named hospital or medical appointments as journeys now at risk. They said they could no longer get a food shop. Travel is named alongside food and household bills as one of life’s essentials. In Easton it has not become more expensive. It has been taken away.

Norfolk County Council has an e-petition open until 30 September. Anyone who lives, works or studies anywhere in Norfolk can sign it, and it must carry a full address or the signature is not counted.