Written evidence from L Huntington (BUS
138)
I am writing to you as a resident of Dalton Piercy,
Hartlepool to express my concern at the cuts to the bus services
which serves our village along with other outlying villages in
the Hartlepool area. As a mother with two young children who doesn't
always have access to a car, this bus service is a vital link
with the town. Whilst currently I have access to a car, this is
not always the case and indeed, when our car broke down recently
and my child was at nursery, I relied on the bus service to be
able to collect him from school. The presence of this bus service
was the reason that my child is now at that particular nursery.
At the time of requesting a nursery place we did not have access
to a car, so our choice was limited to the nursery which was on
our local bus route.
In addition to my own concerns at the loss of a bus
service, I worry for my neighbours and the effect it is having
on them. On the one side my neighbours are elderly and have no
transport of their own. They used the bus service daily to go
into town. The bus service not only provided them with a means
of transport, enabling them to continue independent living, but
also allowed them to meet up with their friends who travelled
on the same bus route. Indeed, when I used the bus it was quite
clear that it was a community in itself!
My other neighbours have a teenage child who was
able to be independent through the use of the bus. My concern
for her and other teenagers in the village, including my own future
teenagers, is that they now have no means of independently getting
themselves into town for college or work, thus risking the slow
demise of the villages as living communities as families take
the decision to relocate to areas which prove more accessible
for them.
It is for these reasons that I am writing to ask
you to raise and consider if in any way it is possible
to bring about a change in the decision to end this essential
bus service.
May 2011
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