Salcombe residents have shared concerns over the current route of the Park & Ride bus service.

At this month’s Town Council meeting a resident called James told councillors that his son playing in his driveway on Knowle Road was nearly hit when a car swerved into the driveway to avoid an oncoming bus, coming very close to where he was standing.

Another resident, Gillian, described the dangers of the buses coming down the hill.

The service will operate again between June 28 and September 8 with the bus running every twenty minutes.

After having walked the route with residents, Cllr Christine Milton said: “I was actually surprised how difficult it was when buses were going past and I noted how tight Knowle Road is for the buses to travel along. Drivers coming up Coronation Road are also faced with a blindspot turning into Knowle Road.”

Cllr Milton added: “Some places along Knowle Road are really narrow when the bus goes through and if you are walking along the road you have to find a safe space, which is invariably on someone's driveway.

“In Coronation Road because of the nature of their small driveways and today’s much larger cars the majority of cars overhang the pavements making them almost impossible to walk on leaving pedestrians with little option other than to walk in the road”.

Cllr Milton explained that the bus drivers have to slalom down Coronation Road driving into another pinch point at the end due to two parking bays immediately opposite each other at which point they can be faced with vehicles turning from Shadycombe Road into Coronation Road.

Cllr Milton invited her fellow Councillors to walk the route so they could experience first-hand the issues the residents are faced with, which several have now done.

Salcombe Town Council received a petition from residents of Knowle Road and Coronation Road with 67 signatures to say how unsafe they thought it was and asking for them to look at another route.

As a result an alternative route has been proposed down Devon Road and into Shadycombe Road, looking to turn the bus round in the Creek carpark.

As this, however, would involve the bus reversing within the car park to turn around, the owners, South Hams District Council, have expressed concerns from a health and safety perspective.

Mayor Cllr Mark Goodey said: “This is an issue we are taking very seriously and are focussing a lot of effort on, not just to find solutions for this year but also to provide major improvements for Salcombe’s future”.

“At Totnes bus station for instance there is a turning circle so for the short term it would be worth seeing how much space that would take up in Creek carpark”.

South Hams District Councillor Mark Long replied that the feasibility of this could be looked at but there would be a cost to it.

Responding to the important points raised by the Residents the Council resolved to organise a meeting with all the stakeholders involved as soon as possible.