ANDOVER’S new £3m bus station was officially opened on Wednesday morning – and the company running services there said it gives them the capacity to run more buses.

Stagecoach operations manager for Andover, Pete Robinson, said: “With a growing population the prospects for the Andover area are good.

“If the population uses the buses we will put more on for them.

“The new bus station has an extra two bays and provides us with more capacity to do this.”

But services need to be commercially viable. The town’s ‘star’ services , service 76 and the Active8 service, which has a bus running every 15 minutes to Tidworth, already are. But demands for a better direct service to Winchester will only happen if they are subsidised by a local authority.

Mr Robinson, added: “It could be worthwhile and we may look at it. When we ran the service to the hospital before it was not well used but as the population grows it might change.”

The new bus station has won the support of town centre manager Chris Gregory.

He said: “It think it is a great facility and the business community is very positive about it. Hopefully it will bring more people into Andover and it complements the work of the town centre partnership.”

Bus campaigner and town councillor Barbara Carpenter says she uses the new station on a daily basis. She said: “I think it is a brilliant facility and it will make a significant difference to people’s quality of life, especially in the winter.

“I’m particularly impressed with the mobility facility and its link into the car park.”

Barbara says she hopes the bus company will look at ways of linking the bus station with Asda as many people find it a strain to carry heavy shopping significant distances.