Without consultation or negotiation First Group decided to axe the Colerne's only daily bus service.
With just 90 days notice, hundreds of people who relied on the 228 to get to work or shop faced being stranded. Bath may be only 20 minutes drive away but, stuck on top of a steep hill with only a fast and twisting road to connect us, it might as well have been 500 miles away.
First’s Corporate Social Responsibility document says they: "Work closely with and engage with the communities in which we operate." Which is so much hot air. They refused to even divulge any data about the service which we could use to find an alternative provider.
The parish council wrote letters and prodded those above it. Our district councillor has a profile lower than Lord Lucan's and was duely invisible on this.
Our noise did help persuade Wiltshire County Council and Bath & North East Somerset Council to find some money and get local bus company Faresaver to run a replacement service.
But if Faresaver can't make money then we could find ourselves in the same situation again. Will the council always be able to financially support the service? Should we expect them to? Can we compel private operators to provide such services? Should communities be supported to set up their own services? Community First have done some interesting work in this area.
The scare has brought home to villagers how fragile our transport links are — it’s getting the sustainable alternative in place that is the difficult bit.
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