Union attack on councils bus cut
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A DECISION by the Oxfordshire County Council not to pay out £330,000 in subsidies to cover the National Bus Company loss in the area was attacked by the Transport and General Workers' Union last week.
The cut was attacked by TGWU national organiser Mr Larry Smith who said : "The council have decided that increased subsidies are not justified—there was a deficit of £1 million to El million last year and they got £319,000 support from the Government.
"They then withhold £100,000 while the Oxford City Services agree to make cuts and use it to set up car-sharing schemes," he said.
The decision has meant that services are bound to be cut by around five per cent and villages have now been invited to form transport committees and suggest other means of transport to the axed bus services.
An Oxford County Council spokesman told CM that the county had budgeted to spend £250,000 on subsidies to the Oxford-South Midland and Midland Red bus companies in the coming year, "The bill would have come to something like £400,000 if we had agreed," he said.
The county's joint working party on bus subsidies found that the population of the 18 villages affected is only 5,760 and that a mere 75 people a day travel on the doomed services.
"On that evidence," said the working party's chairman, Brig Roger Streatfield, "we decided not to pay £330,000 to keep the services going and that we should tell the bus companies there was no service that we wanted to buy back."
The council has sent a leaflet to people affected suggesting that they may want to hire a school bus and use it for village services.