Dame Bryony Rudkin (it’s a matter of time, mark my words, so we better start using the title now) has been blessing us with her representative skills at the council and asked about the Wherstead Road route.

On a serious note we should not simply be asking why the route shut down, Suffolk will say it’s revenue and First said on Monday – I was there - that it was revenue AND punctuality.  The latter makes it harder to entice them back as they are getting crucified on punctuality at the moment.

Most people are quite aware that as long as the country is effectively bankrupt we won’t get any subsidy for the route.  What we need is collaboration to evenly space out the routes, which will mean that the residents of Wherstead Road will have a reasonably spaced bus service and the companies will have profitable routes.  Sadly the European Commission has (surprise, surprise) totally inappropriate competition rules – and so this will need Suffolk County Council to act as an honest broker to see if we can get a simlar result as Oxford had.  This is the issue

When I was looking for a new house I looked at some on Wherstead Road.  I would not have a bus from the station for two hours during the evening rush hour.

European Competition policy on the buses is another round of bus regulation.  It would be uncontroversial to deregulate this on the Wherstead Road.

I’m going to spend most of this post annoying my Labour supporting readers, so I might as well start by annoying the Tories.  The worst election for the Tories was not 1997, but 1992.  They needed a time in opposition and the win in 1992 convinced them that they were invincible.  The lost their humility, and when you lose that you start to lose a grip on your humanity as well.

Labour’s at that point.  If they scrape a win this time they could finish their party off They have lost their humility and humanity and are not fit to direct a parking bay let alone the country.

This little gem from Ipswich Spy shows why we need to have another turn of the wheel.  Labour clearly think government is a freehold rather than a leasehold position.  Not in a democracy it ain’t.

Let’s miss the brouhaha about whether the Labour were at a group meeting or leafleting, it’s perfectly possible to be doing both.  It’s hardly relevant.

What is that there seems to be no humility in their response.  It is possible for both sides to make mistakes.  The Labour councillors for Bridge ward clearly made a mistake here.  Three councillors aren’t needed at a group meeting when two could go.  Councillor Philip Smart would have been told about this meeting as he was a member of the Ipswich Transport  Society, as Ross seems to admit to Ipswich Spy (if either Ross or Ipswich Spy want to send a copy of the email I’d be glad to publish it here).  Did he not see the importance, did he forget?  Who knows.  He made a mistake.  He should have fessed up.  I hope I would have been a big enough man to do so.

But no, it was spin instead. 

Now they claim (or Ipswich spy claims that they claim) that members of the public could not go along to the meeting with First Eastern.  But I was a member of the public.  I was there.   I paid £2.50 to get in.  So did the Wherstead Road residents.  What Alasdair Ross claimed was not true. It was the direct opposite of the truth. What is true is that the councillors made a mistake.  It’s not the original mistake that kills you, it’s the cover up.

This is boring.  Trying to spin your way out of what was clearly a stupid mistake born of complacency, a mistake that Labour has made time and again with Bridge is why we need a real alternative in Bridge.  The fact that the Labour party from the lowliest councillor to the Prime Minister himself need to simply learn humility shows that they need a rest.  It’s time to go in opposition and let the Tories get complacent, forgetful and rusty.

Sorry for the short notice.  I got this through from Ipswich Buses:

Alan Pilbeam, MD of First is doing a presentation to the Ipswich Transport Society tonight at Bridge Ward Social Club in Austin St, at 1930. Public can attend for an entrance fee of £2.50
 
I will be there (although I’m coming from London so this will be at the mercy of the trains).  There should also be a couple of people from Wherstead Road who want to talk about the curtailing of Route 66.  If you’re coming then please email me at james@bridgeward.org.uk or find me at the meeting.

Here’s a picture of the route 66 bus, taken today.

Sadly there are no passengers as although many of them park at Bourne Bridge as they can’t park at the station.

What a waste, if they could only stop on a couple of these journeys life would be easy.  After all over the last couple of years by providing a good service First Eastern Counties created a market for their services on Wherstead Road. 

Since the Route 66 bus service has been discontinued Wherstead Road has had to make do with village services going into Ipswich town center.  This has caused a number of problems:

• Infrequent services – one an hour if you’re lucky
• Unreliable services not keeping with timetables
• Few seats by the time the busses get to Wherstead Road
• More cars on the road
• No disabled access on the tiny busses

This has got to stop.  It may be hard to get money out of the government, especially as Chris Mole is now the minister for transport, but this can’t go on.