It is with great sadness that First and Last Mile have to announce that our last day of service will be Friday 29 August 2025. After that there will still be a bus service, albeit to a different timetable operated by West Oxfordshire Community Transport who are based in Witney.
This is neither the news nor outcome FLM wanted. For FLM to continue to run we needed 3 things:
* How to carry rapidly expanding numbers of schoolchildren.
From an original 8 students the demand for students to be carried on FLM buses increased term on term. Looking at September that increase looked even more substantial.. We decided the time was ripe for the school service to be run by a commercial operator. Thus from September Pulhams Coaches are providing a commercial school service from September. Once this contract was in place FLM was thus obliged to stop its school service.
* New buses as the leases on our existing buses expire.
The purchase or lease of new buses was dependent on funds being available.
* New executive management structure
This has been achieved with the help and support of our band of dedicated drivers and volunteers.
FLM has always relied on the financial support of Oxfordshire County Council, for which we have been very grateful. Without this support we could never have started nor sustained the service. However West Oxfordshire Community Transport have made a lower bid to run the 411/418 service from September and the County Council have accepted this bid.
FLM has always been run on a shoestring with many functions provided by volunteers giving up to 100 hours of their time a week. We have managed to build and sustain a near faultless service for commuters, schoolchildren, shoppers, etc open for all. That said we have always strived for continual improvements and not been afraid to innovate.
The school service brought a considerable income to FLM. Also FLM continually strived to be a better community trasport operator, and sought more income to meet these demands. Clearly another operator thinks they can do this cheaper albeit with a slightly reduced service.
FLM would like to thank passengers and communities for the support given to us in the last few years. It has been a privilege to serve the local community and we deeply regret this is coming to an end. Our hope was very much that we could continue and make further improvements to our services. Unfortunately it was not to be. Without further funding FLM does not have the reserves to buy another bus necessary to continue to operate even in reduced form.
We will continue to provide a high level of service until the end of August and wish all our passengers well in the future.
ANDY SWARBRICK
DAVID MILES
FIRST AND LAST MILE
