By Beds SU
Thursday, 23 October 2025
For 10 years Bedford students have benefited from the use of a shuttle service to and from the town’s train station and university campus. The SU has been a loud advocate of the Service and its importance to students engaging in their course and student life, such as ensuring the running times align with popular train services accessed by students. Previous service enhancements were achieved through constructive and supportive conversations between the University and Beds SU on behalf of students. The service has benefited many thousands with the cost of their commute, time pressures of student life and student safety.
It is no surprise, then, that Beds SU has heard from many students impacted by its cancellation. We - your Students’ Union - are particularly dismayed and disappointed that a decision to cancel the service was made this summer without any consultation with students. Instead returning students were informed of the decision via email on the 31 July (which many did not access until the start of the new term), and new students were only informed in September. This is despite the University still promoting the service as part of open days and promotional pages of their website over the summer.
Our initial steps
Your Student Campaigns Lead Caius Hamilton was quick to arrange a meeting on 11 August, with relevant Uni staff to gain an understanding of the rationale behind the decision. The response was simply that according to their data the service was underutilised and therefore no longer financially viable.
Caius, along with your Co Student Campaigns Lead, Hauwa Ataja, were keen to get a sense from students in Bedford on the impact the decision would have on them. By 26 September, over 120 students had submitted feedback and consented for Caius and Hauwa to represent them on the decision in a group complaint to the University. (We believe this to be the highest number of student complainants on a group complaint ever received by the University of Bedfordshire).
Since the August meeting Caius has continued to push for a resolution on the matter. However, despite attending a further two meetings including with the Pro Vice Chancellor (Educations and Student Experience), requesting access to the data that apparently warranted the decision, submitting a requested paper to the Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group (VCEG) on the impact on students and submitting a formal complaint to the Adjudication team, there has been no meaningful engagement from the University to find a solution or offer immediate support to students affected. Even though the University has apologised to us for its handling of the matter and given assurances to improve future consultation by holding monthly operational update meetings with your elected Student Campaigns Leads, we remain unsatisfied with this outcome.
Pushing for Student Support for those effected by the change
In an ongoing bid to find solutions for students Caius put forward the following ideas:
- Request for the tuition fee liability to be removed for students who wished to leave the University due to the cancellation of the shuttle service.
- Request that access to the Access to Learning Fund and the International Student Welfare Fund be improved and streamlined for affected students.
- Request for the University to share the bus usage data since they cited underutilisation as the reason for cancelling the service.
- A push for proper student consultation in future decisions.
- A proposed small-scale, low-cost pilot transport scheme.
- Request for support for students who now want to leave halls of residence at Bedford due to poor transport links.
Outcomes to date on the above
The University agreed to share the bus usage data with only the SU on strictly confidential terms, as well as support travel costs for students who meet certain criteria. They have also offered students at UoB an 85p discount on Stagecoach services. However, the University has refused to waive tuition fees and said students would need to follow the usual process, with each case considered individually, and refused to help students exit their accommodation contracts, stating that these are managed by third-party providers. They also rejected the idea of a temporary replacement transport service. This last matter is one we are particularly keen to rectify as a matter of urgency, especially with darker night's drawing in and other seasonal changes that can impact and increase travel concerns.
A full overview of the meetings, conversations and next steps can be found here.
How to feedback
If you have been affected by the cancellation of the Bedford shuttle bus service, we would like to know how: we are still collecting stories to enhance our representation, so whether your journey has become longer, more costly, more unreliable, or completely untenable, we’d like to hear from you. You can submit feedback to Beds SU 24/7 using our online form at BedsSU.co.uk/feedback.