Part of Eastleigh bus improvement plan shelved

Part of a proposed scheme that aimed to shorten bus journey times and increase reliability has been scrapped.

The Bishopstoke Road bus improvement scheme would have seen a bus lane built between the Riverside and Chickenhall junctions in Eastleigh, Hampshire.

Funding for the project from the government's Transforming Cities programme was welcomed by Hampshire County Council in 2020.

But the authority said the plan was shelved due to "deliverability" issues.

It will instead be replaced by a "better value for money" bus corridor to Fair Oak.

The scheme was part of a wider plan to improve the public transport corridors between Southampton, Eastleigh, Bursledon and Totton.

In March 2020, the Department for Transport (DfT) awarded £57m to the Southampton City region to encourage sustainable travel from outlying residential areas.

The plan for Bishopstoke Road also included better bus stops with screens that gave real-time timetable updates, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The scheme will now be refinanced and delivered to a new timeline, subject to approval from the DfT.In the authority's updated report, it said it now proposed to "implement improvements along the Blue Star 2 bus corridor for the value of £530,000".

It said this would result in it costing the same or being "better value" compared to the original bid.Bluestar's bus route 2 runs between Southampton and Fair Oak via Portswood, Swaythling, North Stoneham, Eastleigh and Bishopstoke.

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