Salisbury bus station was a bus station in the city of
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of ...
, Wiltshire, England. The station had five stands underneath a red brick building which was built in 1939 as the headquarters of the
bus company.
It was closed in 2014 on the grounds of high maintenance costs.
Services
The only operator at the station was the
Salisbury Reds brand of Wilts & Dorset, a subsidiary of the
Go-Ahead Group
The Go-Ahead Group plc is a passenger transport company based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, with operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, Norway and Germany. Formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange, in 2022 it was purchased ...
. The station was mainly a hub for local services, including Salisbury's
park and ride
A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...
scheme serving five sites around the city, with the Petersfinger site being opened most recently in 2010. Longer distance services, known as 'X' services, ran between the city and other surrounding areas, such as
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
(X7),
Pewsey
Pewsey is a large village and civil parish at the centre of the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire, about south of Marlborough and west of London. It is within reach of the M4 motorway and the A303 and is served by Pewsey railway station on the Re ...
(X4) and
Bournemouth (X3).
National Express
National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
coach services have always called at the Millstream Coach Park in the northwest of the city centre.
Closure
Only a third of Salisbury Reds' services called at the station by the time it closed in January 2014. It was also expensive to run, with services later making use of street stops and the city's park and ride sites instead.
Despite being described as outdated and underused by Salisbury Reds, the station's closure, announced in November 2012,
was unpopular with Salisbury residents as it provided a focal point for services.
A spokesperson from Salisbury Reds also said that the station was originally opened for the much larger
Wilts and Dorset bus company and the present company didn't need all of the space available. Even though the main reason for closing the station was to cut the costs of maintaining the ageing building, Salisbury Reds had been awarded £400,000 in March that year to improve the station and its services. The station was closed at the same time as
Amesbury bus station.
Present day
Shortly after closure, the bus station was demolished. The construction of retirement homes, branded as 'Sarum Lodge', on the site was completed in February 2018.
Despite the closure of the station, Salisbury retains its Park and Ride services which terminate at various street stops in the city centre.
References
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Former bus stations
Transport in Wiltshire
Bus stations in England
Buildings and structures in Salisbury