A Community Grant of £5,000 has been handed to a vital bus service in the West Wight, allowing it to continue serving the local community.
Freshwater Parish Council's given the money to the FYTbus, which was first founded to fill a gap in local transport left by the withdrawal of some Southern Vectis local services in the west of the Isle of Wight in 2008/9.
FYTbus is a registered charity and not-for-profit company. It's purpose is to improve access to local health (GP surgery, clinic and St Mary’s Hospital), social, retail and leisure amenities for the residents of and visitors to West Wight.
It is run by volunteers and all the drivers are trained to National MiDAS standards. The scheduled routes and excursions run with a passenger assistant who is there to help passengers if they need it.
The FYTbus are financially self-sufficient with no revenue support from local councils. It bid for capital funding to replace/renew the minibus fleet and improvements to their Thorley Depot and are grateful for the support given by Freshwater Parish Council.
The FYTbus also has a shop on The Broadway in Totland selling usable and collectible kitchenware, furniture, clothes, footwear and toys at bargain prices.
The service has recently replaced one of their minibuses with an electric minibus in a bid for a greener future and hope to have a 2nd Electric minibus by the end of this financial year. To power these they are in the process of installing a photovoltaic array at their Thorley depot, which will greatly decrease the running costs of the busses.
A new service available on weekday afternoons is their Flex-E Service which you can book via telephone 01983 752917, the website www.fytbus.org.uk or via an App ‘FYT and SCIA booking’ available through the app store.