Rural buses mean life in the slow lane

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/30/rural-buses-mean-life-in-the-slow-lane

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Perhaps Elizabeth Mueller (Letters, 30 June) should spend some time in a small village without a car, instead of pontificating from Glasgow, a vibrant, well-connected city. I recently spent a few weeks using buses while my car was off the road. My village was, until six weeks ago, served by one bus a day, Monday to Friday, which left at 10.35 and returned at 14.05. This meant spending three hours in the nearest (small) town, or two in the next (slightly larger) one – lovely on a fine day, when you can walk or sit in the park, or by the river, less so when there is horizontal rain. I got to recognise the “regulars”, some of whom travelled most days, some changing buses to see the sea. This service has now been cut to two days a week; these regulars were dreading the change, being unable to leave their own villages, more isolated than mine.

I had thought of selling my car now that my partner has retired, but those few weeks changed my mind.Jennifer GaleLittleham, North Devon

Related: End discrimination against older drivers | Letters

• Elizabeth Mueller rightly says that buses could be an alternative to road congestion and isolation in rural areas, but wrong to suggest that such public transport is generally available. Part of the problem is indeed that drivers, but not just older drivers, cling on to car use. Herefordshire has in recent years suffered many cuts in bus services.

Much of the problem goes back to bus deregulation. This is a rural area and yet astonishingly the county is served by no fewer than 20 bus operators. This leads to anomalies such as one company permitting dogs on board and another not, and one-day rover tickets being only valid on certain services – no way to promote tourism. A service from Leominster to Ludlow was curtailed because Ludlow is in Shropshire and that council discontinued its subsidy for the last part of the journey through Shropshire, so buses terminate in the Herefordshire village of Orleton. (A temporary and partial reprieve has been granted.)

You can’t blame councils or operators for cancelling little-used services, but there has to be more joined-up thinking. An obvious but unlikely partial solution would be to include a substantial road use tax in fuel prices other than for public transport. If we are committed both to reducing emissions and improving public transport then some unpopular decisions will have to be made.Joseph CockerLeominster, Herefordshire

• Lucky Elizabeth Mueller living in bus-saturated Glasgow. It’s fine for her to tell us lazy, feckless village-bound pensioners to get out and about on the bus. The problem is, we might want to go out on Sunday or in the evening, but the bus doesn’t run on Sunday, and the rest of the week the last bus time implies we should be home with our Horlicks by 8pm. So, much as I love to use my bus pass, I still need to drive when the bus isn’t there.Lillian AdamsStansted, Essex

• Elizabeth Mueller’s uplifting letter applauding rural buses seems to apply only to Scotland. Here in North Yorkshire buses are becoming a rarity – huge areas without any evening service and many communities limited to the “market day wonder” of a weekly bus at best. Our county council is threatening to axe most of its remaining support for buses, resulting in no services at all for many, and a ban on pensioners being able to use their passes on many Sunday buses.

Yet here, as in Scotland, the need is great. Without a bus, the elderly and those without a car are tied to their four walls, or forced to abandon local ties and move to a large town or city. There are huge social, economic, environmental and health problems around the corner – abandoning the bus will simply add to them. Bill BreakellKeldholme, North Yorkshire

• I see that Elizabeth Mueller, who feels that older people should give up their cars and use public transport, lives in Glasgow. It seems she knows little about using public transport outside of cities. It is pretty naive to state that “bus companies are doing their best to provide a service to rural communities … in line with government policy”. Subsidies come through local government and funds are stretched to the utmost. No bus company will run a service that does not make a profit. If most of the passengers are using bus passes, the profit seems to be insufficient.

As people age, mobility often becomes compromised – arthritis often the cause. A rural bus generally runs to and from the local town. Deposited in the town centre, the older person has to face a good deal of walking to get round all the places she may need to visit. Supermarkets are invariably placed around the rim of towns accessible mainly by cars. Local government offices have also often moved from the centre. Friends and relatives may reside in a distant suburb a long way from any bus stop.

There is no evening transport from my village to and from the local town, so theatre and social visits are out. There is no transport at all on Sundays, so visits to places of worship are also ruled out. Getting to and from hospital is a nightmare without a car.

I am 78 and I need my car to enjoy the freedom that Elizabeth Mueller probably takes for granted. I hope to drive to my native Scotland soon where a car is indispensable.Alison FairgrieveIxworth, Suffolk

• Elizabeth Mueller’s opinion that the claim that older people would be stuck in a village without a car is “shortsighted and ignorant” is rather harsh as my late mother who lived until 2012 in a village not far from Leicester was as a non-driver. The local bus company had reduced the service to every two hours, claiming that the subsidy and demand was too low for the previous hourly service. Two hourly that is if the bus didn’t break down, which was a frequent occurrence, was diverted due to bad weather or the driver missing out half his route to make up lost time.

The village she lived in had many such elderly people who had to rely on this service and the lack of possession or access to a car was clearly a great handicap to many of them.

Perhaps Ms Mueller’s views are once again informed by the better provision of services north of the border?Tim JohnsonLeicester

• My village of 500-plus residents has just three buses a day to the local market town of Knaresborough three miles away – the first leaving at 9.38am and the last returning at 2.40pm on weekdays – and none at all at weekends. Of course it is little used – the timings quite useless for anybody in employment. There are no shops in the village other than a post office open three mornings a week, which is why most households need two cars. Maybe Ms Mueller should check her facts before labelling people as “ignorant”.Julie EdwardsKnaresborough, North Yorkshire

• Here in the small Oxfordshire village of Charney Bassett, there are no facilities other than a public house and a mobile library service which visits every two weeks for 20 minutes. The only public transport we have is a community bus which runs to and from the local market town twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday. This is of little practical use. The nearest frequent bus service runs along the A420 about two miles away. The village school closed years ago and the children are transported to an adjacent village, by road.

It would be difficult if not impossible to live in this village without a car or two in each family. However, using a car on the deplorable local roads, seriously potholed and largely unsalted in winter, verges overgrown blocking sightlines, and used as a race track by drivers hoping to cut a few seconds off their journey times, is no fun.

Sheila Hancock was spot on.Keith HarrisCharney Bassett, Oxfordshire