Local Councillors David Dixon, Bryan Chalker and Cabinet Member in Charge of Transport Cllr Charles Gerrish met with Local Campaigners, First and Passenger Focus to discuss the cut to the 6&7 Bus Services.
Simon Cursio, Commercial Director at First has offered to reinstate the Circular Service, however only with the same number of buses that this service was cut back to, this offers a 40 minute service in each direction. There would also be a wait for this to happen - not until September.
Clearly the offer to reinstate the circular route is great, but there is still lots more to do.
It is quite clear that the 40 minute service is still a greatly reduced service from the 20 minutes previously, plus we do not accept that we should wait until September.
Cllr David Dixon said, "The offer from First is broadly what I expected and I will treat this as an opening offer for our negotiations. The service has still been dramatically cut. First and the Council have gone away to look at improving this offer and are due to report back to us next week.
As it stands we are still a little way from where we need to be, and First do need to ensure that they deliver a service which the community will continue to value. The locally run campaign has been well run and I congratulate all local residents that have been involved, it has certainly convinced First to do a U-Turn on the routes, we just need to speed up the implementation and improve the frequency, I am confident that First will better their offer."
