Mason Moore | Hinckley Reporter | 4 August 2021
THE DECISION to quietly remove bus shelters from the busy main road of Weddington Road in Nuneaton has been revealed.
Weddington residents were left stumped and puzzled three days ago (1 August), when they had noticed that the bus shelter near the KFC restaurant had been removed with no prior notice.
Another bus shelter, located next to the One Stop convenience store, which was also in regular use by residents, was removed yesterday (3 August).
Today (4 August), a spokesperson for Warwickshire County Council revealed the reasoning behind the removal of the bus shelters to the Free Press.
The spokesperson explained that Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council had recently been approached by JC Decaux, who owned a number of the shelters in the borough, advising the Borough Council that they wished to have them removed.
Cllr. Wallace Redford (Con, Cubbington and Leek Wootton), Portfolio Holder for Transport and Highways at Warwickshire County Council, explained that advertising revenue from the 58 total shelters had ‘significantly’ declined.
He further stated that NBBC had passed an offer to buy the shelters over to Warwickshire County Council (WCC).
He said: “Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council (NBBC) had a contract with JC Decaux (JCD) that provided 58 bus shelters across Nuneaton and Bedworth.
“Advertising revenue from the shelters paid for their maintenance, however, in the last two years, advertising revenue has significantly declined.
“This contract ended at the end of 2020 and NBBC passed an offer to buy the shelters over to Warwickshire County Council.”
Coun. Redford later said that whilst WCC promotes the use of public transport, they ‘did not have the resources’ to maintain all the shelters, so they used data from JC Decaux, NBBC, and bus operators to identify the most used shelters.
Following the results of the data from all involved in the research, 39 of the 58 total bus shelters were purchased by the County Council and the others were subsequently removed as a part of the contract between NBBC and JC Decaux.