The chaos on public and school buses has nothing to do with First Bus Company but everything to do with the county council’s avarice. As a parent whose child was moving into sixth form at Thomas Hardye, I was faced with the decision to pay £400 for a concessionary place or drive my child to school.
Since my child does after school clubs most evenings I would have been paying £400 for daily one-way trips, which worked out to be more expensive than using a public bus service.
Now the council is faced with paying for empty buses at the tax payer’s expense rather than getting the parents of those children no longer entitled to free transport to cover the cost, which was clearly their intention.
If they had increased the cost of concessionary places by a more reasonable amount – say to £300 – they would still have had full buses and the public bus service wouldn’t be creaking under the strain.
Funnily enough I haven’t heard that the county council is reconsidering how much they are charging for concessionary places as a solution.
Lesley Lewis, Butt Farm Close, Winterbourne Abbas
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