BUS campaigner and Dawlish councillor Alison Foden has praised bus company Stagecoach for finally running more buses.

The town and district councillor has campaigned for better bus services for more than eight years after her own experiences of struggling to use the rural services for travel to work.

She had argued that rural areas needed better and more frequent services, particularly at peak times.

Now she says she is ‘delighted’ after Stagecoach announced increase frequency of bus journeys from Dawlish starting this month.

She said: ‘I am extremely happy that the management at Stagecoach have made these improvements to our public bus service, with increased frequency throughout the day.

‘It’s very good that funding from the Bus Services Improvement Plan (BSIP) is helping improve our service.

‘I am sure this will be a huge boost to local residents and businesses.’

She says as well as three buses an hour for much of the day, it appears the Number 2 service will be quicker by using a more direct route.

Earlier this month, Stagecoach announced a range of timetable changes to benefit passengers.

Service 2, which runs between Exeter and Newton Abbot via Dawlish will increase its frequency from every 30 minutes to every 20 minutes, providing an additional journey every hour, and access to Starcross, Dawlish and Teignmouth.

Cllr Foden started a petition to Stagecoach Devon in 2017 calling for improvements to the service and for the bus service to be restored to three buses an hour.

As well as handing in the petition to the managers at Stagecoach, she took the campaign to Dawlish Town Council through a Notice of Motion in 2023.