Community Awareness
This is an article from the Evening Telegraph December 2004

Night bus plan for festive revellers
£1 fare for clubbers
LATE-NIGHT revellers can get home safely for just £1 from tomorrow.

A new night bus service from Wellingborough town centre will run for the next four weekends. It is hoped the scheme for pubbers and clubbers will cut crime and drunken behaviour on the streets.

Wellingborough Community Safety Partnership, which includes the police and the council, is paying for the new service.

Insp Ali Reynolds of Wellingborough Police, said: "A similar night bus in Rushden has been successful in getting people out of the town centre and home safely after a night out. We hope the Wellingborough Service will be just as successful."

The bus, which is being run by Carters Travel and will carry two security staff, could continue running into the new year if it proves popular and if more funding can be found for the service,

Leaflets with details of the route and times have been distributed to pubs and clubs in the town. The bus will pick up passangers at Bay A and The Fiddlers Elbow in Church Street; The Cutting Room in Park Road and the Cannon pub in Cannon Street from 11pm to 1.30am.

It will drop revellers off at the junction of Cross Road and Gold Street; The Fox and Hounds in Gold Street; the junction of Hardwick Road and Vicarage Farm Road; Minerva Way; The Eagle, Costcutters and Third Avenue in Queensway; The Duke of York, the Co-op store and Jubilee Cresent in Kingsway; Wrenn School in Doddington Road and Bar Life in Sheep Street.

The Rushden night bus has been running every Friday and Saturday night for a year and has carried 1,000 passengers. The service is credited with helping to cut crime and anti-social behaviour by 40 percent.

Tomorrow representives of East Northamptonshire Community Safety Team, East Northamptonshire Council, the health authority, Carters Travel and the police will mark the anniversary outside the Corner Flag pub in High Street, Rushden, at 7pm with a quiz on alcohol consumption.

Author: Ben Guy
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