In the Vale for the Vale

In the Vale for the Vale

TRANSPORT

Do you need a lift?

We may be able to help! We operate a volunteer transport scheme from Monday to Friday, covering Wantage area, Faringdon, Watchfield, Shrivenham and outlying villages.

We drive clients to Day Centres, surgeries, hospitals, shops, to visit friends and many more locations! There is a charge for using the transport scheme and you must call to book in advance. Typical charges (at current prices*) include – Letcombe Regis to Wantage's Mably Way surgery £11.00, Faringdon to Oxford's JR hospital £40*.

 

 

In the Vale for the Vale

TRANSPORT

Do you need a lift?

We may be able to help! We operate a volunteer transport scheme from Monday to Friday, covering Wantage area, Faringdon, Watchfield, Shrivenham and outlying villages. We drive clients to Day Centres, surgeries, hospitals, shops, to visit friends and many more locations! There is a charge for using the transport scheme and you must call to book in advance. Typical charges (at current prices*) include – Letcombe Regis to Wantage's Mably Way surgery £11, Faringdon to Oxford's JR hospital £40*.

Do you receive Income Support or Pension Credit Guarantee? If so, we may be able to claim the cost of an Oxford hospital journey directly from the hospital. Please note that for hospital trips, the driver will normally wait up to 3 hours. Trips of longer duration (eg day surgery) will be charged as 2 trips.

Please call VCI on 01235 765348 or email transport@vci.org.uk for more details or to make a transport booking. Although we have fewer drivers than our usual 60 due to the pandemic, we still have volunteer drivers who with a few extra precautions are taking clients to essential need and medical related appointments. We are able to take clients at short notice or over the weekend to their Covid19 vaccine appointments.

VCI has a number of its own wheelchairs which can be used by clients for the journey to and from the car/location. However, unfortunately our drivers are not able to transport a client who would need to remain in the wheelchair for the journey itself. Unfortunately, due to the guidelines that we have had to put in place as the result of Covid19, the volunteer drivers are not able to assist a client by going into the hospital with the client. However, if necessary, we can help by making arrangements for a porter to meet you at the main entrance.

Between April 2019 -March 2020, our 60 volunteer drivers transported 6,000 people nearly 90,000 miles in and around the Vale of White Horse. Around 25% of our drives are to the Oxford Hospitals.

Please click this link to see the fares for some of our most popular journey requests:

Transport fares 2022

Please note - For example, if there is a Faringdon volunteer driver available, the fares for Faringdon residents would be reduced etc. Please call the office for further information.

New Drivers Needed

We are currently looking for new volunteer drivers who live in any of the towns or villages in the Vale.  We would be particularly happy to welcome new drivers who live in the town of Faringdon or nearby villages as this would also help reduce the fares for residents in those areas.  We appreciate that you might be a little bit wary of doing some volunteer driving, but the office team will happily talk to you about the risk assessment and processes that we’ve put in place to minimise the risks to both the volunteers and the clients. Just an hour or two once a week to collect a client from their own home or to take them to a nearby Day Centre (and/or return them back home) would make such a difference. Head over to our VOLUNTEERING section to read a little more, or ring 01235 765348 and ask for Kathy, Wendy or Paula to talk a little more about this initiative and how you may be able to help.

* Current prices: as at May 2022

** Please note that a small proportion of the charge is used to cover the administration costs of the Transport scheme.

Sign up for our newsletter

Subscribe

* indicates required

Please select the email option below and we will send you our quarterly, Vale Community Impact newsletter:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.