TWO separate Warminster taxi companies have decided to set up their own versions of the Hopper bus to the Royal United Hospital in Bath, which will cease running next week.

A & G Minibuses and Ace Taxis, both of Warminster, have announced plans to start door-to-door services to help transport residents to and from Bath’s Royal United Hospital for appointments, to replace the council’s popular Connect2 service.

Paul Allansby, manager of Ace Taxis, said: “The RUH Hopper covered a big area of the county and was much loved by its users.

“So when we heard that the council had pulled its funding, we decided to start up our own service, just covering the local area for now.

“Our service will be a little bit more expensive than the council’s one as it won’t have funding behind it, but hopefully it will still be a useful service for local residents who need transport to the RUH.

“There’s certainly still a demand for a service of such a nature, we did our market research and got some positive customer feedback, so we’re confident it will be well used in the community.”

A & G’s service, led by Allan Robinson, will be called the RUH Rover and will be trialled for a three-month period, with four arrival and departure times daily from Monday to Friday.

The departure times will be at 8am, 10am, 12 noon and 2pm and the bus will complete its return journeys at 1pm, 2.30pm, 4.30pm and 5.30pm.

Ace Taxis, which was started three years ago and now has a fleet of seven cars, will similarly run a hopper service every three hours with four buses running a day, which is called the RUH Taxi Share.

Their buses will run from Trowbridge, Westbury and Warminster from 6.50am through to 4.30pm each day and will return from the RUH from 8.30am through to 6.15pm.

An online petition was started in March to save the Hopper service, after Wiltshire Council announced £130,000 would be cut from its budget to fund it, but it was unsuccessful after the council could not find anyone to take on the funding. The last Hopper buses will run on Friday, June 10.

For more information, contact Ace Taxis on 01985 807070 and A & G Minibuses on 01985 218754.