PSCT originally began in 1975 when Pitsmoor Methodist Church and Community Centre, a new church in a new Housing Association Development bought a retired Commer van from Social Services to bring elderly people into the first voluntary lunch club in the Burngreave area of Sheffield.  It cost us £40 and we thought that was a lot!

 

We drew together about 10 different community and church organisations and each organisation took out a £10 share in the newly formed Pitsmoor Community Transport.

 

The two buses currently serve the following regular organisat·         Grimesthorpe Methodist Church Lunch Club ·         Shiregreen United Reformed Church Wednesday Lunch Club ·         Shiregreen United Reformed Church Thursday  Lunch Club ·         Christchurch Church of England (Burngreave) Lunch Club ·         The Stroke Club at the Northern General Hospital, wholly run by volunteers.   In addition to the regular bookings, the buses are used at weekends and odd days when not used by regular users, for causal bookings.   Below is a picture of one of the two blue vehicles, bought in 1999, in operation.

We painted the van a deep maroon, serviced it and fixed the bits that were wrong, and we were operational.  How naïve we were then.  The seats were side benches, with belts for the young children that the welfare fleet had brought into a day-care centre.  There was no lift.

 

Colleagues at Shiregreen United Reformed Church (SURC) and Shiregreen Community Association created Shiregreen Community Transport, a couple of miles north of Burngreave, on the Shiregreen Estate around 1980, to start supporting community activities there.

 

Help the Aged supported us when we raised money for two new buses in 1981, and on the right you can see the pictures of the presentation of the two new vehicles.  We had worked so hard to raise the funds for the new buses and we had a celebration day with friends who had helped us and members who shared in the day.

 

Around 1986, the two organisations decided that they would be better working as one, and so merged to create Pitsmoor and Shiregreen Community Transport.  The existing members all became members of the new organisation, with one set of officers and accounts.

 

As part of the merger, it was decided to register as a Friendly Society, and to this day PSCT is a registered Friendly Society.  This is similar to a charity, and involves similar requirements for a constitution, audited accounts, etc., but allows for the operation of a service on a collective basis.

 

In 1989 the Government announced the Capital Challenge, and Shiregreen United Reformed Church was successful in its application for funds to replace one of the maroon buses, which by this time was 8 years old.  PSCT raised further funds from grant applications to replace the other old maroon bus, and have the two vehicles running in tandem.  PSCT has a management agreement with SURC to operate the vehicle owned by SURC.  This means the most effective and economical operation can be maintained.