In rural Cambridgeshire, transport is often the difference between staying connected and becoming isolated.

Our team see this every day. One resident told us she couldn’t meet with a Village Agent because the session clashed with the weekly bus running from her village to the nearest market town. She had to use that journey to do her food shop and catch the return bus an hour later. Missing it would mean being stranded. Another resident pays £40 each way for a taxi to attend one of our community hubs. It is a significant cost, but she chooses to do it because of the value she places on social connection and the impact it has on her wellbeing.

At the same time, community transport schemes across Cambridgeshire are under such pressure that they are often limited to medical appointments only. Yet we know that services like our community hubs play a vital role in preventing ill health. When people cannot access them, the risk of isolation increases and with it the likelihood of more serious health issues and hospital admissions. This is the reality of transport in rural areas.

The government’s new strategy, Better Connected: A Strategy for Integrated Transport, sets out an ambition to create more joined up, easier to use transport systems. It recognises the importance of local leadership, integration across services and the role of community and demand responsive transport. This is a welcome direction of travel. But in rural communities, the conversation cannot stop at buses.

For rural communities, the challenge is not just integration. It is capacity, flexibility and access. Too often, transport policy is built around urban assumptions. Frequent services, short distances and multiple options. In rural areas, the picture is very different. Services are limited, journeys are longer and people often rely on a combination of formal and informal support to get where they need to go. Even where services exist, they are not always accessible. For many rural residents, the walk to the nearest bus stop can be a mile or more along narrow, unlit roads with no pavements. For people with mobility issues, parents with young children or anyone carrying shopping, this is simply not a realistic option.

Even when support is available, accessing it is not always straightforward. Many of the people we work with need help to apply for concessionary bus passes or blue badges, navigating complex forms, digital systems and requests for medical evidence before they can travel at all. Without that support, many would simply go without.

In urban areas, public transport is often a realistic alternative to the car. In our villages, it often is not and that difference drives inequality.

Rural communities are already finding ways to make transport work. Community transport, volunteer drivers, neighbours helping neighbours, hubs acting as access points for support. These are not gaps in the system, they are strengths. The opportunity now is to recognise and build on them.

If this strategy is to succeed in places like Cambridgeshire, it must go further. It must ensure that rural needs are considered from the outset, not adapted as an afterthought. It must recognise that access to transport is not just about infrastructure, but about people being able to navigate systems, afford journeys and reach the services that keep them well. And it must acknowledge that prevention matters. Enabling someone to get to a community hub, see familiar faces and access early support is not a “nice to have”. It is part of a system that reduces pressure on health and care services. There is a real opportunity here to get this right.

At Cambridgeshire ACRE, we see both the challenges and the solutions every day. We will continue to work with partners to ensure that rural communities are not only considered in the implementation of this strategy, but recognised for the value they bring in shaping how integrated transport can work in practice. If we want thriving rural communities, we need to stop thinking of transport solely as a bus timetable and start thinking of it as a lifeline. Because being better connected should mean something for everyone, wherever they live.