The team began planning the conference five months before the actual event, so seeing it come to fruition a couple of weeks ago was wonderful. It was a gloriously sunny day in Llandudno, and our conference facilities overlooked the promenade and the sea. Who wouldn’t want to have been there! The conference had been a sell-out, and we had a waiting list for people to attend. A total of 55 organisations were represented on the day, including members, stakeholders, and partners, as well as those just at the very beginning of developing their own community transport in Wales.

It is not often that you go to a break out session at a conference and hear about elephants and a nun riding an E bike, but at the CTA Wales Conference breakout session Extending transport Provision through E-Bikes, we heard all about one of the nuns from Skanda Vale Hospice in Wales using an E bike to get around the hospice site and we saw the elephants that live alongside her and her community at the hospice. It was a fantastic illustration of how extending the way we think about CT can have an impact on people and communities that more traditional CT options have not reached.

BBC Wales has highlighted the devastating impact of bus cuts in rural areas and the phenomenal work of CTA members, Dolen Teifi, based in Ceredigion, as they support more people than ever in accessing hospital appointments in the region. 

BBC Wales reported: 'Dolen Teifi in Ceredigion said it was helping more people get to hospital than ever before, and blamed the lack of transport in rural areas.

It was a real pleasure to be alongside a really engaged and enthusiastic group of delegates at the Transport Smart Class for Wales & the West in Cardiff on 5th December. The attendees, keynote speakers and innovation sponsors were all focused on how to take the latest innovative practice and embed it to make our transport networks more effective, integrated, accessible, and sustainable.

In 2019 Wales was the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency and in 2023 Welsh Government set up Climate Action Wales to better communicate and engage with the population around the subject.  

Transport is the third largest carbon emitter in Wales and Climate Action Wales is keen to communicate how adapting or changing our travel behaviour can contribute to not only reducing the emissions but also another host of benefits like improving air quality, saving money and enhancing our health and wellbeing overall.  

This year I have had the pleasure of working with Lynsey Hargreaves at the West Glamorgan Regional Partnership who has been working with people with lived experience of learning disabilities around their issues with transport.

“It’s been a really interesting process over the past three years. The only way I can describe it is that it’s like a relationship – we started out as friends, then we dated for a while, and now we’re official!”

Listening to Elenid Roberts describe how an informal partnership of CT operators in north Gwynedd developed was both informative and entertaining. Our Working Well sessions create space for operators to share experiences and learn from each other.