The Downland Volunteer Group has published its end of year report.

Volunteer Health Transport

The last year has been another busy one for the Downland Volunteer Group. In the last financial year ending in March this year we made 1293 trips for Downland residents to attend their medical appointments of which 156 were for Chieveley residents.

In January this year we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the formation of the DVG. Most of the village news sheets and the Newbury Weekly News carried the story. We also held a buffet lunch to celebrate, attended by District Councillors, Doctors from the Downland Practice, who are very supportive of our work, West Berks Council personnel and the first Chairperson and co-founder of the DVG. We also had representatives from the Downs School who in 1984 in a social studies class identified the need for transport to help residents attend their medical appointments. Because the Downland villages are spread out it is difficult to provide adequate public transport.

We continue to promote our service with new people moving into the area and our constant challenge to attract more volunteer car drivers. Chieveley supports the DVG with 17 volunteers of which one is a Director, one a Handebus driver and the others operate as car drivers and/or office volunteers.

 We would welcome more volunteers as demand continues and we lose some older drivers because of their age or for health reasons. Driving a resident to the surgery would normally take no more than 2 hours out of your day and trips to the surgery account for 25% of our total trips. If you know of anyone that can help or wants to escape their laptop for a few hours, driving for the DVG is rewarding for both passenger and driver and your mileage claim is paid tax free.

We also operate the Downland Volunteer Group HandeBus, the first all-electric community transport vehicle in West Berkshire which helps some villages to go shopping and also offers ‘Fantastic Friday’ trips for neighbours to visit places of interest nearby

Last year DVG volunteers gave a total of 3352 hours of their time for free to support the Downland community