Further written evidence from Cllr A Turpin,
South Somerset District Council (BUS 84b)
Severance of 30A evening and Sunday bus servicelinking
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 21 March and
3 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
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