THE Tiverton & District Community Transport Association was honoured at a special ceremony last week (June 11) to recognise the dedicated volunteers and staff who are the driving force behind Devon’s Community Transport schemes.

Tiverton CTA received the award for Best Contribution to the Local Community at Devon County Council’s 16th annual Community Transport Awards ceremony at County Hall.

The ceremony, sponsored by GM Coachwork who specialise in wheelchair access vehicles and vehicle adaptations, recognised outstanding contributions within the community transport sector.

The organisation took on a mammoth task during the last year by taking on the work of Crediton CTA when that scheme went into liquidation.

The work came with many upheavals and stressful days but the public where none the wiser, as the Crediton scheme closed its door on Friday afternoon and Tiverton CTA began running the services on the following Monday morning.

Going through all of this change has been a huge learning process but Tiverton CTA took it all in and kept thriving.

The CTA was proposed by Faye Ashton, who said: "We feel that we have achieved a mammoth task this year, when sadly our neighbouring CT Group in Crediton went into liquidation.

“Instead of running for the hills, we decided to embrace change and help provide the services in the Crediton area. “It came with many upheavals and many a stressful day, but with positivity in mind we rose to the challenge and thankfully, the only people that saw us running around like headless chickens were staff and volunteers.

“The public were none the wiser, as Crediton closed its doors on Friday afternoon and we began our services on Monday morning with many of the same drivers.

“Since then our confidence has grown and we have learnt a great deal.

“For us to remain in this sector and survive the economic climate, it is very important for us to embrace change and we feel that our staff and volunteers have really outdone themselves with this task.

“Covering both market towns and their surrounding areas allows us to promote consistency within our pricing structure and enables us to have strong policies and procedures in place, ensuring that there is less confusion for our passengers.”

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council Cabinet Member for Highway Management, said: “Our congratulations and thanks go to the winners and everyone involved with community transport in Devon, who make it the successful service that it is.

“This annual award ceremony is a celebration of Community Transport and it illustrates the positive work within our communities.

"As always, we received lots of nominations and the dedication and commitment shown across Devon demonstrates what an important and highly valued service this is.”