This new DRT looks like a winner

Thursday 12th June 2025

I’ve been back on the DRT trail again, this time in Portsmouth, trying out the latest scheme which hit the road at the end of last month.

Branded Pompey Link, it’s funded for an initial 10 months by Portsmouth City Council’s Bus Service Improvement Plan with hopes for an extension into 2026/27 and beyond.

It’s another scheme in the capable hands of Community First, the Hampshire based charity I came across in March when trying out the new Connect branded DRT in Andover.

Two 16 seater minibuses – a Citroen (above photo) and Peugeot (below) equipped with either a rear lift or ramp (respectively) have been acquired for the service and are based at Fareham.

There are two main reasons why this operation will be a success.

Firstly, Pompey Link’s operating area is restricted to journeys between Paulsgrove and Port Solent and also from Port Solent to Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham Interchange and North Harbour with operating hours of 09:00 to 19:00 Mondays to Saturdays (it’s odd there’s no service before 09:00).

The pick up/set down restrictions mean there’s no conflict with scheduled bus routes in the area, albeit Port Solent hasn’t been served by a bus route for many years.

With two buses allocated to the service and the restricted geographic reach it means journey lengths are typically short – up to ten minutes maximum, so there should always be a bus available for booking a ride when requested, or if not, very soon after one’s desired departure time.

Secondly Community First is a very well regarded organisation providing an extensive range of services across Hampshire from support for social enterprises, other charities and community groups; well being services; volunteering; training through to significant involvement in the community transport and mobility sector. It runs a fleet of around 50 minibuses and clearly knows what its doing having expanded considerably during its 15 year life particularly through mergers with other similar organisations.

As I mentioned in March Community First runs Dial-a-Ride type services in Basingstoke, East Hampshire, Fareham/Gosport, Havant, New Forest and Winchester as well as operating scheduled local bus circular route 44 linking Eastleigh and Chandler’s Ford with Hiltingbury.

Pompey Link is now in its third week having had a ‘soft launch’. It’ll be publicly launched next week when I’m sure awareness will soon increase by word of mouth in the close knit communities of Paulsgrove and Port Solent as well as by 10,000 leaflets being distributed by Community First through letter boxes in both areas.

I gave it a try out yesterday morning having easily booked a pick up from Cosham Interchange using Padam’s generic app for a few DRT operations it supports.

Never having been to Port Solent before I was interested to see what it offered. My train arrived in Cosham at 10:55 so as per my usual practice now, booked a pick up for 11.15 so there was no stress from potential late running trains and indeed as soon as I left the station, on time, I espied a Pompey Link bus sitting on one of the bus stands already waiting for me and met up with Eric.

In years gone by Eric has previously worked for Stagecoach South so knows the area well and was clearly excited about his new job. He’d already carried a passenger that morning from Port Solent into Cosham and saw considerable potential for the service once word spreads. He gave the example of another passenger using a wheelchair he’d taken from Paulsgrove to the cinema at Port Solent – a journey she previously had to pay for a taxi to make.

It took just 11 minutes to travel the 2.6 miles from Cosham to Port Solent confirming just how quickly bookings on this scheme are going to be fulfilled.

As we approached the bus stop in the large car park in Port Solent, Eric pointed out his colleague Brian, with the second bus, was already in situ as my return booking in half an hour was with him, while Eric was off for his meal break.

Like Eric, Brian was full of enthusiasm for the new service and both are going to be great ambassadors for Pompey Link along with their other two colleagues.

I took a wander around Port Solent which as you can see is a large marina in between Portsmouth Harbour and the M27 with extensive residential units…

… as well as many restaurants and retail units, an Odeon cinema and a David Lloyd gym.

There are also many moorings for yachts…

… and an extensive car park but, until the arrival of Pompey Link, no bus connections.

Which, when I compare the situation with say, Brighton Marina, and its extensive bus services including frequent cross city routes 1X and 7 is quite a contrast.

Which is why I think Pompey Link could do very well. It won’t make a profit, that’s for sure, but the characteristics I’ve described make it an outlier to the usual DRT operations covering extensive rural hinterland and very low density population.

When I returned to the bus stop from my brief wander around Port Solent, there to greet me, in addition to Eric and Brian, was Fabian who is Head of Transport & Mobility at Community First and who I’d spoken to over the telephone when trying out the Andover service. Fabian had seen I’d booked a couple of journeys and travelled from Southampton over to Port Solent to check out what I thought.

We had a lovely chat including him joining me on the journey back to Cosham and it reinforced my view that Pompey Link is in safe hands.

Many thanks to Fabian for taking the trouble to travel over and also to Eric and Brian for their superb driving and infectious enthusiasm.

As you can see they sold Pompey Link to me as a very positive development!

And, of course, now Wiltshire Connect and West Sussex’s route 99 have both lost their semi-flex status, which I perviously raved about, I’ve got to find another DRT to hold up as an example of best practice.

And this is it.

Roger French

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