Melksham Councillor Jon Hubbard has said he feels ‘disappointed and let down’ by the decision of First Bus to cancel their early morning buses running from Bowerhill.
The decision to stop the 6:48 and 7:41 services will come as a bitter blow to residents who have already seen the cessation of the free Rail Link bus.
The Melksham South councillor commented, “I feel personally very let down by First Bus who have made this decision. Last time I spoke with First it was about how these popular services could also help replace the Rail Link service. Now residents in Bowerhill are left with nothing.
“First make all sorts of noises about wanting to see services succeed but then cut whole communities off at the knees. This is a callous cut that will affect a whole community and leave people struggling to get to work.
“It is also a cut which will potentially impact the viability of the Trans-Wilts train service, as it will make it so much harder for people to get to the station.
“I will certainly be challenging First to explain how they can claim to be committed to making the rail services in Melksham successful, when they are making decisions that can only be saving very, very small amounts of cash on an individual route, but have horrendous impacts on other services and on whole communities.”
Cllr Hubbard has also written to the cabinet member at Wiltshire Council and to the local MP, asking them to urgently look at what options may exist for delegating powers to the council, to allow for the introduction of a ‘Statutory Quality Partnership’ which could help prevent such cuts in the future, by implementing better structured cost-effective services.
