DELAYS in bringing about service alterations in Oxfordshire have led
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to outspoken criticisms of the Traffic Commissioners from county council officials.
"The county council have been given a job to do and with the best will in the world, we are now beginning to find it impossible," said Brigadier Roger Streatfield, chairman of Oxfordshire County Council working party on bus subsidies, after another adjournment last week of the Traffic Commissioners' hearing on major service alterations by Oxford-South Midland Bus Company, Worth's Motor Services and Carteron Coaches.
"Having tried to help villages by seeking to provide the services for which they have asked, we have run up against cumbersome machinery administered by the Traffic Commissioners which is used to license bus services in this country," said Brig Streatfield.
"I cannot see how a system set up 40 years ago to deal with the situation with bus operators who were falling over each other to provide highly profitable services can be expected to cope with a situation such as exists in rural Oxfordshire where most operators are cutting back services and few are willing to consider expansion."
In February, Oxford County Council accepted the unsubsidised service network of Oxford-South Midland. Within three months the company had finalised the details, writes a CM reporter, and the Traffic Commissioners' hearing was arranged for early May. It was postponed until June and then adjourned until this week. Now it has been postponed again with the real issues still unresolved.
"These concern two areas where OxfordSouth Midland is proposing to expand services at the expense of two existing operators who are already providing locally valued services. If the National Bus Company with their immense borrowing powers take passengers and revenue for these services then the operators concerned, Worth's Motor Services and Carteron Coaches, may well have to cut back," he said.
It now seems likely that because of the long deliberations that some services at present worked by Oxford-South Midland will disappear before any replacements can be introduced.