Thank you for finally publishing a prominent article about buses (The rural town that refused to let austerity kill its buses, 6 June). Bus services in my part of East Sussex are regularly slashed, and the latest cuts by Stagecoach, which received no advance publicity, have left me unable to get to and from the place where I work. These services were already poor and underused, fielding rackety, polluting old buses not needed on more lucrative routes. However, they are absolutely essential to the people who use them.
Londoners haven’t a clue how bad public transport is outside their city. Even in towns, many routes are hourly and don’t operate in the evenings, on Sundays or bank holidays, all of which has a big impact on the local economy. This government seems to have no policy at all on public transport. My MP, Amber Rudd, has campaigned vigorously for high-speed trains to Hastings and Rye, and road-widening on the A21, both things which benefit the better-off, but seems to have no interest at all in the need of her own constituents to be able to travel around the place where they live.
It would be an irony if we were able to get from London to Hastings in an hour and then need another hour to complete the two-mile journey from the station to home. I’d urge everyone affected by terrible public transport to complain to their local MP – I suspect Labour is no better on the issue than the Tories. We are constantly being urged to abandon cars and instead use public transport to save the environment, but for most of the population this is an impossibility. What’s needed is a vigorous national campaign.
Jo Hillier
Hastings, East Sussex
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