Help for a village
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The day-to-day work of the highways department in transpat co-ordination is provided currently by the example of the village of Foelgastell, which has no bus service at all.
Villagers have to walk around one and a half miles to catch an NBC service to Carmarthen, some 10 miles away. Their plight was brought to the attention of the planners by the local county councillor, although the subject could have come up via half a dozen different routes.
Geoffrey Rooke then asked the NBC whether it could provide a once a week service by means of a diversion or an alternative service at a reasonable cost. This the NBC said it could not manage owing to drivers' hours problems at Llanelli depot.
Four private operators with vehicles standing for part of their time in Carmarthen were then approached; a large part of their cost was known to be defrayed by their mix of school/pea k hours services. Three operators replied,' giving their total costs.
The highways department's proposal is that the cheapest of these three offers should be accepted for a subsidised experiment of three months and the results examined. This proposal has been through a sub-committee and now awaits highways committee approval at its next meeting — in September; in the end if comes down to a political decision. The 80-member county council is controlled by independents with 32 Labour, four Liberal and four Plaid Cymru members.