Bus service after the Spending Review

Further written evidence from Cllr Andrew Turpin, South Somerset District Council (BUS 84b)

Severance of 30A evening and Sunday bus service - linking Axminster (Railway Station) Chard, Ilminster and Taunton including the main District General Hospital, Paddington Line / South West railway station and the National Express bus service.

Reference my earlier correspondence of 21st March and 3rd April, I have yet more evidence of deprivation owing to the loss of the 30A Sunday bus service.

This last Saturday, a student joined the service 30 to Taunton. She works week-ends at Sainsbury's. She told me that because she has no other means of getting into Taunton on a Sunday, she will lose her Sunday work and has been told she might possibly lose her job altogether.

This last Sunday, a glorious day, was the last of the Sunday bus service on the 30 route. It connects with the 31 service to Weymouth. It provided a day out to the Lyme Regis for the young and old who have no car.

An example of this is a family in Chard who I know use this service regularly.

Many elderly from Chard go out as a group together. They spend a couple of hours in Lyme and join the 1715 30A service back home. It was a therapy for all.

For me, lose of this service means that most Sunday afternoons I have to cycle the very steep Tytherliegh hill on the busy A358 (a five mile journey and a prospect I don't relish) in order to get back to Tatworth. I am 65 and have had a quadruple heart bypass.

April 2011