Madam,

In response to the letter in your last issue from Mr and Mrs Lewis of Borth regarding the discontinuing for the second time of the 512 service’s stop at Aberwennol - there is never any consultation with bus users when such changes are made! It appears that they are holding the council to blame for this, rather than the operator. I’m not at all sure this is the case - and their complaint will pale into insignificance when one looks at the bombshells that Mid Wales Travel have landed residents of Penparcau with this week. No buses at all run-ning around on the service 304, for example, between 7.30 and 9.05! How on earth are people supposed to get to work?

Some very strange things have been happening this year,including mid-term alterations of school bus arrangements, which involve crazy routes taking some youngsters all around the world before reaching their school in Aberystwyth, and dangerous turning around of said buses when they have dropped off the children. Recently they have been running a shorter route from Clarach to town around those scary hairpins above Llangorwen! It seems to me as if fuel saving and fewer driver hours have become the priority for this company.

As far as the Borth service itself is concerned I have always thought it insane that those buses go up to Aberwennol twice on each run. All the people up that hill have to do is get on the bus when it comes up and enjoy a nice little run along to Ynyslas and back before going into Aberyst-wyth. Where is their problem? If the buses ran down to the main road at Tre’r ddol and into town that way, while the next service ran round the circuit anticlockwise and up the main road first before going over to Ynyslas, then all those poor unfortunates living in the main road villages, who have a half day jaunt when visiting their doctor in Borth because they have to go into town and then out on the next Borth bus would find life a lot easier. I am watching the current changes with some interest.

Yours etc,Joyce Porter,Mid Wales Area Representative,Bus Users Cymru.