SAVE OUR BUS WORKING PARTY

Move to Silence Bus Campaign Backfires as Passengers Vote to Take The Campaign Bus to Europe
PRESS RELEASE - FRIDAY 21st DECEMBER 2007
In a move to silence the Save Our Bus Campaign, Stagecoach, SWT and HCC took the astonishing decision last week to set up a "new" Working Party made up of themselves, 2 Hursley Councillors and a Planning Officer from TVBC. Nadine Taylor from the Save Our Bus Campaign was invited to attend what she was lead to believe was a meeting with the main 3 transport bosses ahead of her next Working Party Meeting to try and iron out a few of the problems surrounding the new X66 route. She was though presented with a newly formed Working Party that was not a fair and proportionate representation of the bus route. Not only were there no representatives from Romsey, but the new working party slapped a list of conditions on Nadine's membership of the new group. To read the full press release, please click here.

WORKING PARTY - 1ST MEETING REPORT - Railroading Our Bus Service - No, ho, ho

The Working Party Group held its first meeting on Friday 16th November 2007. Those present were:
Nadine Taylor - Chair
Matt O'Connor - Save Our Bus
Alan Bayley - Commuter Representative
Sandra Gidley - MP
Martin Tod - Parliamentary Candidate for Winchester Lib Dems on behalf of Mark Oaten MP
Caroline Nokes - TVBC Cllr and Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Romsey
Cllr Eleanor Bell - Winchester City Councillor for Hursley
Andrew Wilson - Hampshire County Council Passenger Transport
Chris Haresign - South West Trains
Julian Jones - Romsey 2020
Viv Messenger - TVBC Planning & Transport

Stagecoach did not attend the working group meeting, stating that it was too short notice (we know that feeling) and that they did not feel they could input anything until nearer July when monitoring of the reduced, and in our opinion ineffective additional buses had been monitored and a decision had been made as to whether they were going to be continued. This was not our understanding at the Public meeting when all parties committed to trying to increase useage and awareness of the service, even in its reduced state.

During the meeting South West Trains refused to reveal the figures used to calculate the viability of the Rail Link bus service or discuss the monitoring of the existing service. To our minds it was clear that this was intended as a pre-planned fait a complis – giving us little to no time for consultation or a fight back. They thought wrong!

Both Hants County Council and SWT accepted that Stagecoach thought the X66 service was financially viable but could not explain why the Rail Link wasn't. It appeared at the end that all discussion had been closed off by SWT and Hants County Council with them refusing to discuss fare increases or the rescheduling of the existing service to focus on peak times.

Hants County Council also said that bus users from Romsey were not in need of 'social inclusion' compared to other users in other parts of the county. By that we presume he meant users on the new Waterlooville to Petersfield rail link bus service.

SWT said that the station at Romsey was more than adequate. This being a station devoid of parking and a bus stop! Worse, when the tunnel at Southampton closes next year it would be walk, rail, bus, rail to London.

The group agreed to write a letter to Brian Souter, the Chairman of Stagecoach which also owns SWT and to continue its campaign.

On a personal note, credit to Chris Haresign from SWT for taking the flack but we will not be railroaded on this issue.