Momentum is building for an ambitious new initiative to solve Keswick’s hospitality staffing shortage by bringing in workers to the town by bus from unemployment hotspots.
Spearheaded by Tony Lywood, county and town councillor for Keswick, the scheme has been devised to fix the Lake District’s hospitality staffing crisis while finding jobs for people from north Copeland – an area with more than a 20 per cent unemployment rate among young people.
As it stands it takes two or three buses to get from Cleator Moor to Keswick, taking around two hours.
Councillor Lywood says that if dedicated bus services are introduced, the journey time and cost could be slashed in half.
Keswick Town Council has now thrown its weight behind the project which already has the support of bus company Stagecoach and the mayor of Copeland, Cllr Mike Starkie.
Addressing the July meeting, Coun Lywood said the project was something he has been considering for a long time.
Having run in the last parliamentary election for Labour in Copeland, he said that he had visited Egremont, Whitehaven and Cleator Moor.
Comparing these towns to Keswick, Coun Lywood described them as being in “a different world” and said that if people were not working at Sellafield, then wages were poor and many people lacked their own transport to find higher-paid work. A motion to support the project was passed unanimously.
The new bus service could be announced in conjunction with a jobs fair and Coun Lywood said the project would be worth it “even if it just carries thin air for first few weeks.”
