by Elena Alyavina,
Earlier this year, we met with twelve Otley residents. Most were over 60. The group came across as socially active, well-informed, and open to innovative transport services. They shared their travel experiences, discussed the most difficult journeys to make without a car, and imagined what better transport futures could look like. The conversation was wide-ranging, thoughtful, and quite touching. What did this exercise reveal about travel in Otley – and about how transport could be made better for the town and its people?
Life on the edge of administrative boundaries
Otley may belong to Leeds on paper, but its residents’ everyday geographies are much wider than the administrative boundaries around them. A family’s logistics here may involve a 16-year-old son who goes to Ilkley Grammar and a wife who works in a different school in Ilkley (a nearby town that falls under Bradford Council). A rail journey might start at Menston, a local train station that also sits outside Leeds. A night out in York or Harrogate might end with coming back on a train to Weeton that sits outside not just Leeds but West Yorkshire as a whole.
Such journeys are not unusual for Otley – as one participant put it, “We live on the edge of Leeds, so journeys to Ilkley, Harrogate, Bradford, they are all frequent journey for us.” In their broader accounts, these examples point to something very important: everyday travel crosses boundaries a lot more fluidly than the existing transport systems do.
For Otley residents, boundaries are not just abstract lines on a map; they are also lines of responsibility. One participant described how getting to Skipton means travelling via Ilkley and taking three buses, each run by a different company and with long waiting times in between. Another responded with uncertainty around who was in charge: “Are we talking about the interconnectivity between Leeds council and, say, Bradford? Because Ilkley is Bradford and Skipton is Yorkshire”. Service quality was caught up in these wider issues too, as participants compared the “superb” buses like the A3 Flyer into central Leeds with the really old buses that go around the area and don’t really work.
The problems seem easy to identify but hard to assign. If a service is unreliable, if timetables for different transport modes are not coordinated, or if a vehicle provided isn’t fit for purpose, who should Otley residents call upon – Leeds, Bradford, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, or the bus companies themselves? Who, in this tangle of councils, providers, and regional bodies, is responsible for making these journeys work as one continuous whole?
Not quite disabled enough: stuck at the boundaries of eligibility
When participants were asked to reflect on their most difficult journey without a car, one response drew everyone’s attention: “I’m not a car owner, and I chose ‘the route not taken’ as it makes me feel very emotional. My life is quite restricted now; it didn’t use to be, but there is a lot of places I’d like to go that I just can’t get to.” Her further account of a journey to Ilkley revealed yet another boundary: being not quite disabled enough to qualify for specialised provision, but not quite able enough for ordinary transport.
On a map, her destination is only six miles away and would take her 15 minutes by taxi – she used to travel this way but can no longer afford. She doesn’t meet the criteria currently for an access bus so she has been going by regular bus instead. The bus journey takes her between two and two-and-a-half hours. The real difficulty, however, is not in the length of this journey itself but in how that length accumulates in her body. After coming home, she explained, she can be in bed for three days because she is in so much pain doing that.
Yet, this journey is not something she can simply give up. Stuck at the boundaries of eligibility, journey by journey she is fighting for her independence: “I don’t want to be dependent on other people; I want to be independent, and it’s very important for me and my well-being”. Ilkley, is home to her elderly mother, who is 90, in poor health, and unable to get out and about. “I feel cut off from my mum at the time of her life where she needs contact”. The urgency of this became even clearer once she added, “I haven’t got my mum for much longer – a couple of years, if that”.
Overcoming boundaries: from fixed timetables to flexible futures
These are only a couple of the many stories that surfaced on the day from just twelve Otley residents, suggesting that many more difficult connections and everyday compromises are being quietly managed all across town. Changes to bus governance across West Yorkshire – including the shift to franchising and the Weaver Network – could help with these problems. Participants, however, were sceptical. Although they knew the changes were gradually coming in, one reflected that they might not have much of an effect in their area because other areas are being prioritised and Otley is somewhat down the list.
This concern is not without basis: although the first franchised Weaver Network bus services are expected to begin as early as May 2027, public control will be rolled out in phases across West Yorkshire. For places waiting for later phases – including Bradford, Otley and its surroundings – the promise of integration may not be realised until closer to the end of 2028. For the participant trying to reach her elderly mother in Ilkley, this raises a painful question: will Weaver arrive in time for them to have the connection they need?
One participant also pointed to a long history of unmet promises. He recalled returning to Leeds in 1996 after living abroad and seeing a promise of best metro system in the country by the year 2000. “That was 30 years ago!” he added, “How many promises have we had since then?” At the same time, participants did not want the discussion to frame change as impossible: “We shouldn’t be talking about reasons why not to do something – we should be saying what we want!”. This was echoed in a wider frustration that transport decisions were too often made at a distance: “If they started listening to us and what we actually want instead of deciding for us and then calling it off…” Participants, then, were not simply complaining about poor services – they were claiming a voice in defining what better transport should look like.
That voice became clearest when participants reimagined their most difficult journeys. Some questioned whether transport should always work to a fixed timetable, and suggested community-run, on-demand services that could go where and when people needed them. Others wanted shuttle buses around town and felt that community transport could work particularly well in Otley because people could book fairly local journeys. Existing resources also came into view, including the two minibuses at Otley Action for Older People that already ferry people around but without any scheme at the moment for people to book the service.
What participants were imagining, clearly, was transport that is flexible but also rooted in and responsive to the social life and everyday needs of Otley itself. Perhaps, this is the real lesson here: better transport cannot solely rely on top-down planning, from the centre outwards, through zones, phases, and complex timelines. Maybe, it also has to be imagined from the edge of planning, from places where the journeys are lived and felt. For Otley residents, the answer is clear: listen to the people making these journeys and build from there.