Faversham Hopper

When bus services in the villages around Faversham were reduced in 2023, Faversham Town Council carried out a transport needs survey in the villages affected. The feedback showed many residents in surrounding villages without personal transport, felt socially isolated and were having to rely on expensive taxis to go shopping or to appointments.

Faversham Town Council set about planning routes, sourcing a fully accessible vehicle and recruiting volunteer drivers. The volunteer drivers came from a variety of backgrounds and were trained on the Minibus Drivers Awareness Scheme (MiDAS) with the assistance of Compaid.

With the help of our grant award, the Faversham Hopper was launched in April 2024, to help restore transport connections for the outskirts of Faversham.

The Hopper has become a community bus service in the true sense of the term with drivers reporting lots of friendly conversation and social interaction, and providing an extra safeguarding layer to the community by checking in on regular passengers if they haven’t used the community bus for a while.