Plea to night riders (From Stroud News and Journal)

Plea to night riders

THE poor take-up of Stroud's reinstated late night bus is being blamed on 'appalling' lack of county council communication.

Eilish Cope, chairman of Minchinhampton Parish Council, is furious that transport chiefs failed to tell the parish that the service was coming back. Although it does not run through the centre of Minchinhampton, the bus does serve Brimscombe and Amberley, which are part of Cllr Cope's parish.

"We would have marketed this service but we couldn't because we didn't know anything about it?" she said. "Communication on this has been appalling and then they wonder why it is not being used, I say wake up and smell the coffee.

"It's just another example of the county council being completely unable to communicate with parishes - I'm not sure if it is ignorance or arrogance or both."

As reported in last week's SNJ, the late night bus returned on October 21 after last winter's successful trial, but has now only received 11 passengers after the fourth weekend of operation.

Chalford Parish Council has also confirmed that it was only notified about the re-launch after the first weekend of its operation.

Cllr Muriel Milton, the parish's transport representative, said: "They have brought this bus in but didn't send us any information until after the event giving us no chance to publicise it and what is the point of doing it if they don't publicise it?

"It's no good just to expect people to ask for a timetable if they don't know the bus is running.

A GCC spokesman was unable to comment on the lack of consultation but he said: "Numbers of passengers have decreased slightly this week (week 4) however it is still early in the lifetime of the service.

"The Stroud Local Strategic Partnership would urge local people to make use of the service."