Psv transport 'needs change'
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A PLEA to free the growing number of people "in prison in their own environment" by the run-down of transport services in rural Wales was made at the weekend by a junior minister from the Welsh Office.
Voluntary schemes. community bus services and other less conventional forms of public transport were needed, said the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales, Barry Jones, MP.
He told local council representatives, transport operators and transport interest groups at a one-day symposium on rural transport at Aberystwyth that the run-down could affect the quality of rural life.
Mr Jones said the steady decline in rural transport services was reflected in the increasing level of car ownership. This itself was encouraged by the relatively poor quality of the surviving transport network, so many people felt compelled to run a car.
The fact had to be faced, he went on, that there were many areas in which conventional services would be an expensive luxury. "It is not good economic sense to run ordinary buses on routes where passenger loadings are in twosand threes and where the terrain makes such operation physically difficult anyway.
"We should be seeking, by orthodox means and experiment, to bring a transport facility to people who may not have had a regular bus service for a very long time," said Mr Jones.
A package of experimental services to begin next month in part of Dyfed would include a new post-bus service. It was also hoped to try out, under carefully controlled conditions and in conjunction with trade unions, a relaxation of the bus licensing laws to enable lifts to be given for payment.