Yeovil to house new 'transport hub'

Somerset Council is in the process of demolishing the vacant Glovers Walk shopping centre in the heart of Yeovil, replacing it with a ‘meanwhile’ community use while long-term regeneration proposals are worked up (using funding from Homes England).

Yeovil bus station will remain operational throughout the demolition work, with the council working closely with bus operators to keep service disruption to a minimum.

The council has now revealed the bus station could be upgraded into a major ‘transport hub’, mirroring a planned facility coming to Taunton in the next few months.

As part of its bus service improvements plan (BSIP), the council committed in May 2024 to creating a new ‘transport hub’ on the former bus station site on Tower Street in Taunton town centre.

The original bus station closed on March 27, 2020 after 67 years of operation, with Buses of Somerset claiming it was no longer economically viable to maintain the building.

The council subsequently acquired the land and will shortly appoint a contractor to deliver the new hub, with up to £2.7m of funding from central government being made available.

The new Taunton hub will include new interchanges for bus and coach services, electric vehicle charging points, new waiting areas for passengers bike storage and repair facilities, e-scooter facilities, taxi bays and connections to the town’s walking and cycling network.

Officers revealed ambitions for a similar hub in Yeovil when the revised BSIP was discussed by the council’s planning and transport policy sub-committee in Taunton on February 11.

Natasha Bates, the council’s service manager for passenger transport commissioning, said: “We want to deliver similar packages to the improvements in Taunton, but looking at Yeovil and Bridgwater.

“We’d like to look at what we can do with evening services in Yeovil – we’re looking at options at the moment, including services which operate around the local area.

“We’d like to roll out bus priority signal improvements to tackle congestion hotspots, allowing buses to move much more quickly through the town.

“We will be working with the regeneration team which is working on the Glovers Walk site, and we will look at producing a feasibility study for a future hub.”

Ms Bates said that such a hub would not be delivered before the end of the financial year, since the Department for Transport (DfT) had only provided a one-year funding settlement.

She said: “This is not something we’re going to be able to deliver on the ground within the next year.”

A multi-year settlement for local authorities – including transport funding – is expected to be provided by the government from 2026, following the conclusion of the spending review in the spring, initial recommendations from the Casey commission on the future funding of social care, and the autumn budget.