Dont blame me missus

ANGRY Plympton residents prevented a bus from leaving its stop in protest at the withdrawal of their local service. From this week Citybus has ended its number 20 service to Underwood and Merafield Road in Plympton. Local Conservative councillors John Lock and Terri Beer joined residents in their protest last Thursday, days before the service finally ended on April 3. “We have been negotiating with all concerned to arrive at a solution to this desperate situation,” Mrs Beer said.
Mr Lock said the protesters “marched into the road and held up the bus for a few minutes. The bus driver thought it was hilarious. He leaned out of his window and said, ‘Don’t blame me, missus’.”
Mr Lock said the council’s transport department was holding a meeting tomorrow at which the number 20 service would be discussed and a decision made on any possible subsidy for Citybus. Peter Oliver, the Citybus operations manager, defended the ending of the service. He said there had been very low passenger numbers, although these had picked up slightly since last June. And there had been high numbers of accidents because of the way people park in Merafield. “Many times our drivers couldn’t get into the road because of parked vehicles,” he said.
Recent concessionary fares cuts and high fuel prices had also affected the viability of the route.
Meanwhile, Labour councillors will present a special motion to next Monday’s meeting of the full city council, calling on the council to work with bus operators to restore services which have been withdrawn across the city.
A spokesman for Plymouth City Council, said: “Citybus have withdrawn these loss-making services because they do not have enough passengers to run commercially. We have been in contact with operators to discuss potential options for maintaining a service in the Merafield and Coxside areas but no decisions have been made. Our bus subsidy budget for the next financial year is already fully committed so we would need to identify alternative funding if we were to support any replacement services.”
This is Plymouth 7th April
As always I suggest you click on the link to ead the full story - and have a look at some of the comments if you want to be entertained...
I do wonder how long everything will be blamed on the council selling Citybus? I guess most people either dont realise, or more likely dont care that cuts to bus services are happening all across the country at the moment.

On a more positive note the first of the ex London double deckers have now arrived at Milehouse. More details to follow!

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