Rtn Graham Furnival: Chelmsford Community Transport

At today’s meeting Graham Furnival gave members a brief update on proposals to merge Chelmsford Community Transport (“CCT”) with Community 360 (“C360”), who operate similar services in Colchester, Braintree and Maldon.

CCT was established about 24 years ago to provide affordable and accessible transport for the elderly and disabled residents of Chelmsford and its rural areas. Core funding comes from local councils and generous grants are awarded by various charitable organisations. For the past five years, this being the final year, our Rotary club has given a £1,000 annual grant to CCT to assist with running costs. The Covid pandemic had affected operations but things really came to a head early in 2022 when the Treasurer to the Trustees left, the CEO Clare Dade resigned and CCT were given notice to quit their offices. Despite efforts, we were unable to replace these two key people central to running the organisation. It was clear that following exploratory discussions, a merger with C360, who were a larger organisation would improve the quality and broaden the scope of delivering transport services to our respective communities. Following a “due diligence” exercise CCT and C360 decided to merge.

The merger process is well underway and should be finalised in the coming months. CCT services are currently being operated from C360 offices in Tiptree and CCT’s eight minibuses are running at full capacity.