Madam,

I was interested to read the letter in the Cambrian News from Joyce Porter of Talybont which also pointed out that the A487 north of Aberystwyth has not had enough buses in the past.

The reason there have not been enough buses in the past is due to Welsh Government policy which favours the east-to-west T3 bus route in north Wales at the expense of the north-to-south routes in west Wales (T2/T1/T5).

Before the Trawscymru T3 route was introduced in north Wales between Wrexham and Barmouth, the Welsh Government commissioned an independent review of the Trawscymru network by the Bevan Foundation.

The independent review concluded that the T2/T1 North/South route through Aberystwyth (which was already operational) was strategically more important than the proposed new T3 route from Wrexham to Barmouth.

The independent review recommended that the Trawscymru T3 route should run from Wrexham to Aberystwyth and not to Barmouth. The Welsh Government completely ignored the review recommendation.

After pressure was applied to the Welsh Government regarding the Trawscymru T3 route recommendation from Wrexham to Aberystwyth, the Welsh Government minister responsible for transport (Ken Skates) wrote to the Ceredigion councillor responsible for transport (Alun Williams) on 14 November 2017 saying he had commissioned a “high-level” review of a Trawscymru T3 route to Aberystwyth. This “high-level” review has been ignored in the same way as the Bevan review recommendation.

The new T2 timetable of January 2018 quotes the objective of the changes as “better connections with the T3 service to Barmouth, Bala, Llangollen and Wrexham at Dolgellau”.

In order to meet this objective the number of T3 services have been increased and the connectivity times for all T2 services (north and southbound) with the T3 in Dolgellau have been raised from five minutes to 10 minutes, while at the end of the T2 journey connectivity of the T2 with the strategic T1/T5 services in Aberystwyth has been destroyed.

There is now no connecting T1/T2 services going northward from Carmarthen to Bangor and journey times have been increased by between one hour and two hours 15 minutes.

With respect to the new T2 services, as Ms Porter says in her letter, “In general it is good news for bus users”, but only if you use the Trawscymru services as “local, short journey” options.

It may also be of interest to your readers that Mr Skates has been referred to the Information Commissioner for refusing to answer questions put to him on 22 November 2017 regarding the recommended T3 route from Wrexham to Aberystwyth. The Freedom of Information Act allows 20 days to respond and Ken Skates has now spent 40-plus days without replying.

Yours etc, Dr John McTighe, Llanrhystud.

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