By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
The transformation of an ageing bus station in Bulwell should make bus services more efficient, Nottingham City Council says.
Bulwell’s bus station, which sits between Main Street and Bulwell High Road, reopened on May 13 following a regeneration project.
Nottingham City Council bid for money for the project from the Government’s Transforming Cities fund, alongside Derby City Council.
A portion of £161m was on offer to the two councils, and Nottingham was successful.
Before the pandemic, the council says around 1.1 million passenger trips were made every year from the bus station, and currently more than 600 bus services run through it each day.
At a ribbon-cutting event on May 16, those behind the project said it was necessary to transform the “ramshackle” station which proceeded it.
Richard Wellings, principal public transport officer for the council, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Before we redeveloped Bulwell bus station it was quite a ramshackle collection of bus stops, so we took a look at it as part of our wider bus service improvement programme and decided to invest some money.
“We’ve concentrated all the bus stops onto a larger central platform.
“The benefits of this are not only does it make bus movements more efficient through the bus station, keeping buses on time, but it also makes it a lot more accessible for people in wheelchairs and pushchairs.
“We’ve looked at the different types of seating within the bus station, so they are designed in such a way to accommodate people with different levels of mobility.
“And the bus shelters themselves have got solar panels on them, so all the lighting within the shared shelters is solar-powered.”
The bus station initially closed in January to allow work to take place.
Before this, however, the design lead on the project said the council had been planning the new station for two years.
Ben Biddulph, highway design manager at the council, said: “It vastly improves the transport interchange here, it has got strong links obviously with the rail and tram system just over the road, but in terms of bus stopping infrastructure it is a lot closer together now, it is easier to get off one bus and onto the next.
“There was quite a big process involved. We went through quite a bit of trialling, we effectively set up the bus station on a local airfield and set up some live trials of getting buses around cones in the format of the new bus station.
“It has definitely not happened overnight. It was a couple of years in development before we even put a spade in the ground.”
Olympic weightlifting champion Emily Campbell attended the opening event to cut the ribbon, having grown up in Bulwell.
“It is definitely an improvement,” she said.
“We have some of the best buses in the country so this compliments that.
“I had to come to this bus station every single day to go to school [growing up], and you had to run through the buses, it was organised chaos.
“It is much more clear how to get the buses now.”
However another resident, Karen Ford, feared the project may have been “a waste of money”.
“Since it has reopened I’ve seen buses go round the wrong way twice,” she added.
“There weren’t any problems before, so it is a waste of money.
“It will take a bit of time to get used to it.”
