Reading
The Tiger 7 bus was a route from Reading to a town called Fleet, an hourly service, including on Sundays. But Reading Buses, owned and funded by Labour-run Reading council and Wokingham Borough Council, completely cut the service in January.
After we campaigned, the old route was partially brought back. But it’s simply insufficient for people’s needs.
When this happened, the council said: “Use it or lose it”. They set it up to fail.
Reading Buses also raised the fares. It now costs me £19 a week to get the bus to college.
This is why we started a campaign against this. The service must be fully restored, and bus fares should be lowered.
Adam Gilman
Peterborough
Bus services in my neck of the woods face cuts. It is claimed that services are frequently almost empty.
But the main cut is to a service that goes to and from a business park on the city outskirts. The early morning buses tend to be full going out there and not-so-full going back, and vice versa at tea time.
The route obviously provides a function. It’s difficult to see why it needs to be cut. It seems the answer is that the private operator demands that services have to be full both ways before they can operate them!
Another service threatened with the chop was introduced in the last year. It links new housing directly with the main hospital.
But this hourly service isn’t early enough to transport staff to and from the main morning shift change, and it doesn’t run much after 3pm either. So obviously services have been underused.
Protests by passengers and trade unions have now forced the local authority to retender all but one of the 18 routes. Funding for the services is only guaranteed until March. So the Socialist Party says that, instead, public transport should be returned to public ownership and control, but with much more democratic management than under previous nationalised industries.
Steve Cawley
