Gloucester Transport Hub (also known as Gloucester bus station) is a

bus station A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it generally refers to a bus garage. A bus station is ...

on Station Road in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

, England.

History

Until 1933, the main type of public transport in Gloucester was the

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

. In 1935, after the closure of the tramlines.

Gloucester City Council Gloucester City Council is the local authority for Gloucester, which is split into 18 wards, with a total of 39 councillors elected to serve on the City Council. History The district was formed from the County Borough of Gloucester on 1 April 1 ...

partnered with the

Bristol Omnibus Company The Bristol Omnibus Company was a dominant bus operator in Bristol, and was one of the oldest bus companies in the United Kingdom. It ran buses over a wide area of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and neighbouring counties. History ...

leasing out its bus services. At this point in time there was no bus station in the city. However, the old tram depot on London Road was enlarged and used as a bus depot and is today used by

Stagecoach West Stagecoach West is the trading name of Cheltenham & Gloucester Omnibus Company Limited, a bus operator providing services in Gloucestershire, Bristol, Swindon, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, North Somerset and Herefordshire, in the West of England. ...

. The original bus station, which had 11 bays, opened in 1962 on the former cattle market site which is now part of Kings Square. This greatly increased the popularity of the shopping area around Northgate Street and Eastgate Street. Also at this time, a new inner ring road through the city was built, with the first part being Bruton Way which runs east of the bus station. In 2012, Gloucester City Council agreed to a deal with Stanhope to revamp the Kings Quarter area. This project was planned to cost £60 million with GFirst LEP providing a budget of £3 million to build a new transport hub to replace the old bus station. At this time, an eight week archaeological project took place to investigate the area around the bus station before any major development work was undertaken. A

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

flood bank A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastli ...

was found under the station from this project. In May and June 2016, the old bus station was demolished in preparation for the new one which now had a budget of £7.5 million with £6.4 million of that coming from the government through GFirst LEP. Part of Grosvenor House was also demolished and several businesses including the Furniture Recycling Project had to leave the site. The original plans for the new

transport hub A transport hub is a place where passengers and cargo are exchanged between vehicles and/or between transport modes. Public transport hubs include railway stations, rapid transit stations, bus stops, tram stops, airports and ferry slips. F ...

included having a glass front to the northwest side. However, in July 2017 the city council submitted a planning application for a smaller building than originally designed with the northwest side being external render instead of glass. Additionally, the plans to demolish Bentinck House were put on hold. The proposed reason for these changes was due to a sewer being in an unexpected place and to provide greater flexibility for future development. Along with the building plans changes to the road layout around Station Road and Bruton Way were made to make the new transport hub more accessible. Construction of the new transport hub was started in August 2017 and carried out by Kier Construction, and it opened to the public on 27 October 2018. It has 12 bus bays, a staffed ticket office, electronic timetable displays, a cafe and toilets. It also has solar panels to power the internal lighting and features a stained glass window designed by Thomas Denny costing £100,000. As of November 2019, the stained glass window has not been installed and Thomas Denny is no longer involved with the project.

References

{{Transport in Gloucestershire Buildings and structures in Gloucester Transport in Gloucester Bus stations in Gloucestershire Transport infrastructure completed in 1962 1962 establishments in England 2017 disestablishments in England Transport infrastructure completed in 2018 2018 establishments in England