Anger at latest bus service cuts

Your local Focus Team is protesting about the latest cuts announced by First Bus:

• The X27 service will be cut completely, leaving places like Iron Acton and North Yate without a bus service and other areas facing less frequent, slower bus journeys.
  
• Outside of peak times the express X42 will be replaced with the slower 342 service
  
• Service 327 and Service 329 (an evening and Sunday service subsidised by South Gloucestershire Council) will continue to run.

Last summer, we persuaded First Bus to back down on some of their planned cuts (the picture above shows Lib Dem Councillors with a petition against those cuts), but now they seem to be using the recession as an excuse to make them anyway.

Cllr Ian Blair, who led the campaign last summer, said, “This time they haven’t even tried to consult bus users, they have just told us out of the blue that these cuts are happening whether we like it or not. Yet again Yate is getting second-class treatment at the hands of First Bus.”

Cllr Pat Hockey, the Lib Dem transport spokesperson said that an earlier promise from First Bus to give more warning of future changes and more time for consultation had been an empty promise.

She also attacked the loss of the X27 which will leave Iron Acton without a daytime bus service and said she would be talking to the Cabinet Member responsible for transport to see if the evening and weekend service supported by South Gloucestershire Council can be extended during the daytime.

Cllr Claire Young challenged First Bus's claim that the 342 service that is replacing the direct X42 during the day will only be 6 minutes slower. We told First Bus boss Justin Davies some months ago that these services are regularly upwards of 20 minutes late because of the large number of stops they make in the suburbs of Bristol.

Local MP Steve Webb, who held a meeting with the boss of First Group at the time of the last round of changes, said, "It is outrageous of First Group to try to pass on to hard-pressed council taxpayers the cost of running vital bus services from South Gloucestershire. They need to understand that running a bus service is a long-term business and that people make plans for work and leisure based on the existing bus timetables. They do not expect the bus company to rip up the timetable just a few weeks after the last round of changes. Councils have recently been given new powers over bus companies in the Local Transport Act, and I expect to see South Gloucestershire taking a tough line with First Group. It's time that the Council stood up to the bullying behaviour of the bus companies".