Author: Green Community Travel

2026 Further Afield Trips
We are pleased to share this year’s programme of our further afield trips!
We now fund these ourselves, so the fares are set at £14 with a bus pass (£16 for non-bus pass holders).
We will endeavour to get every passenger onto at least one trip, we want to make it as fair as possible.
We will have two buses for each trip, so we will have buses collecting in different areas, but you can meet up with friends when you arrive. If we have more people booking, we will always try to get a 3^rd or 4^th bus too.
The busier these trips get, the easier it is for us to arrange the pick ups so please tell your friends!

These are designed to be Days Out! Generally passengers can choose what they want to do at each destination but if you want some help booking somewhere to eat we’re more than happy to help.
We also try to vary the trips so there is something for everyone and all abilities.
Give us a call on 01454 228706 to book or you can email us at admin@greencommunitytravel.co.uk
- Mon 16^th Feb: Cardiff – Shop at Cardiff Market, Queens Arcade or St David’s Dewi Sant. Cardiff Castle and the National Museum are a short walk from the shopping quarter. Sneak a peek at the Principality Stadium if Rugby is your sport!
- Mon 16^th March: Gloucester Quays – Shop till you drop, or visit one of the museums around the Quay (National Waterways Museum, Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum and Museum of Gloucester.) You might prefer to have some lovely lunch by the canal and watch the world go by!
- Thurs 2^nd April: Chippenham – Passengers can visit Emery Gate Shopping Centre, visit the museum or visit the shops in this historic town.
- Weds 27^th May: Marlborough – Visit on Market Day, the High Street is one of the widest in the UK and lined on both sides with characterful old buildings housing an array of high quality shops. Marlborough has been recently ranked as the second best place to shop in England!
- Fri 26^th June: Abergavenny Market – a bustling hub of activity. The market offers a wide variety of goods and services, attracting locals and tourists alike and offering a wide range of products including fresh produce, clothing, and household items.
- Mon 20^th July: Moreton-in-Marsh or Batsford Arboretum – Historic traveller’s town with some lovely independent shops and some beautiful cafes OR get dropped off at Batsford Arboretum which has a plant shop and café as well as the arboretum. *Some parts of the arboretum are hilly so only suitable for those who are able* Entry- £10-£12.
- Tues 4^th August: Burnham on Sea – Sing along, oh we do like to be beside the seaside…!
- Weds 26^th August: Weston Super Mare – …Oh we do like to be beside the sea!
- Thurs 29^th October: Corsham – Cotswold Village, stroll down the historic high street and keep your eyes out for peacocks! Any Poldark fans can look out for filming locations. Lots of independent shops and Flemish Cottages.
- Fri 11^th December: Cotswold Designer Outlet, Tewkesbury/Dobbies Garden Centre – A new outlet with plenty of places to eat and shops such as M&S outlet, Crew Clothing, Skechers, The Body Shop and much more. There is a large Dobbies Garden Centre across the road so passengers can be dropped here if they would prefer.
- Phone: 01454 228706
- Email: admin@greencommunitytravel.co.uk
1 January 2026

We Are Holding a Poll to Decide The Name of our New Bus: – COMPLEATED –

We have some sad news and some exciting news…our bus Dobby is very poorly and he was poorly at the end of last year as well so he is coming off the road.

We’ve been working really hard to reduce our expenditure and improve costs over the past few years so we are (luckily) in a position that we can just about replace him.

For names we’ve decided we’re taking inspiration from the Bard so any new buses will be Shakespearean themed!

Help us choose what our new bus should be called by completing our poll

📊 What do you think the new bus should be called?

A: Hamlet

B: Othello

C: Mercutio

D: Beatrice

UPDATE:

We’re pleased to announce the results of our name the bus poll!

The new bus will be called……

Beatrice!

Thanks to everyone who took part and we’ll let you know when Beatrice is on the road!

UPDATE 2:

Beatrice is here and she is ready to get on the road, Click This Link to take a peek!

27 March 2025

Our New Website is LIVE!
Last year we applied to the UWE CAKE (Community Action and Knowledge Exchange) project to have some free consultancy work, our project was a new website to supersede our long serving but aging original site.
We were thrilled that our project was selected by a team of wonderful students that are in their final year.
We met with Tom, Serena, Seb, Veena, and Elliot and discussed what we would like on our new website, and what Community Transport does.
They have done an absolutely incredible job and we are pleased to announce:

our new website is now live!

Working with this group of fantastic students has been absolutely brilliant, not only is our new website beautiful, but they have taken the time to gain a perfect understanding of Community Transport and why it is important, we feel they have really captured the essence of Community Transport and that our new website really showcases GCT and the wider sector.

You can also now complete a registration form online AND submit booking requests!

We will be forever grateful to the team for choosing our project, completing the project to such a high standard but also really taking the time to learn about GCT. They are an incredible bunch of people and we know that they will go far in their futures.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Tom, Serena, Seb, Veena, and Elliot and we wish you all the very best for your final year and assessments, we think you will smash it

01454228706
admin@greencommunitytravel.co.uk
27 March 2025
Sensing Nature Walks at Westonbirt National Arboretum
Our friend Mark Austen along with two other blind guides are hosting immersive and interactive guided nature walks of Westonbirt that offer people, particularly those with sight difficulties, a different way of experiencing the arboretum.
Checkout this news story about the walks from BBC News Gloucestershire:
If you are interested in these guided Sensing Nature Walks Mark and the team have provided a schedule of their upcoming walks for this season on the Forestry England Website: HERE
26 March 2025
Changes to our fares…
At our most recent Management Committee meeting we have taken the difficult decision to increase our fares. They last increased in 2023 and we need to take this step to mitigate our increasing costs as much as we can, we need to ensure that we are viable.
We’d like to remind passengers that anyone in financial difficulty can speak to the office in confidence.
From the 1st of May our fares will increase to:
Ring and Ride:
0-5 miles- £6.50 (this charge is for a return journey)
5-10- £7.50 (this charge is for a return journey)
Anyone without a bus pass would pay £2 more on top of this.
Carers charge will increase to £5.00
Out of Area Charges:
£0.50 will be added, so if the fare was £17.00 it will now be £17.50 etc.
Voluntary Car/Hospital Service:
The fares for hospital transport using our own vehicles will not increase but we are going to increase the admin fee to £2.50- the admin charge has not been increased since 2023 and we need to take this step to ensure that this service also remains viable.
The mileage rate will continue to be £0.50 per mile payable directly to the driver.
Day trip fares will also raise slightly and these will be listed on the monthly programme.
We want to give passengers as much notice as possible about the increase so it won’t be implemented until May.
We do encourage any passenger that is worried about these increases to get in touch with us, we will be feeding back regularly to the Management Committee.
With our warm thanks for your support and understanding,
The GCT Team
12 March 2025
Hospital Shuttle Bus Survey
As many of you will know, the requests for hospital transport are increasing each month….
We are so grateful to our volunteers but there are some journeys we cannot cover, we are wondering if a hospital shuttle bus would mean we could help more passengers. Volunteers would still undertake other journeys, so it may be that we have a shuttle bus to and from Bristol as this would serve the maximum hospitals.

It would still be door to door and with a lovely driver! It would mean that we’d have to ask passengers for a lot of flexibility, so you may need to arrive earlier than your appointment time and wait for a return journey.

We want to know how passengers would feel about this so we have made a short survey.
You can find the survey here and you can complete it online:
https://s.surveyplanet.com/hvnvp3cx
UPDATE: Checkout some early results: HERE
12 March 2025
We’re pleased to share the results of our 2024 survey
Thank you so much to everyone who completed this, it is not too late to hand one in if you haven’t already, we can update the results!
It shows some interesting insights.
- The majority of respondents are 80-90 years old.
- All respondents rate us Excellent or Good
- Most respondents use us for medical appointments
- Using GCT has improved passenger’s quality of life, life satisfaction, social contact with people, health and wellbeing and made people feel happier with day to day life.
We have tried to summarise the results but would remind passengers we always have open ears for comments, suggestions and questions!
Our passenger base is increasing along with the amount of requests we receive and we are advertising for new volunteers to join our wonderful team so that we can help more people. If you’d like to know a bit more please don’t hesitate to call us! We make sure volunteering fits around YOUR life and are so grateful for every minute and mile!
12 March 2025