COLUMN: Bus service cuts will leave us all in the lurch

But nobody is making a fuss.

Does nobody know, or is nobody bothered?

Four million journeys each year on all 138 of the bus routes that are currently subsidised by Derbyshire County Council will become impossible after September next year.

One hundred thousand journeys on community transport services will stop too. In their place will be a fig‐leaf of a service using just ten wheelchair‐friendly minibuses to cover the whole county, plus a very limited extra service for those with very severe mobility issues.

Those minibuses will be far more expensive, per seat, than the scheduled services that they will replace.

So, while DCC will be cutting about 75 per cent of their current spending on public transport, they are expecting a drop of over 95 per cent in the number of the journeys that this money buys.

For people living in a rural area without a car, the future looks bleak. A community that currently enjoys a service of five or six buses each day will see perhaps two minibus trips each week, with maybe six places available each trip.

What to do?

Talk to your parish council, write to your county councillor, and see my website at tinyurl.com/dccbuscuts for links to the DCC consultation and ideas of other ways to make your voice heard.