Residents left with one bus a day (From Bucks Free Press)

Residents left with one bus a day

1:58pm Friday 31st October 2008 in News By Andy Carswell

A SINGLE mum says she is “appalled” residents of a village will be left with just one bus a day after their service was withdrawn.

The Carousel service through Winchmore Hill will be withdrawn today because the bus company says it is unsafe for its vehicles to drive through the village.

But resident Julie Clack says the withdrawal will affect pensioners the most as they would not be able to afford alternative modes of transport.

The 34-year-old mum-of-one said: “They have got their bus passes, they want their little bit of independence. What’s the point in having bus passes when they can’t use them?

“Little things like this matter to me because I believe they fought for us and they done us proud and they get extradited like nobody.”

Before today there were three buses to Chesham each day, leaving Winchmore Hill at 9.30am, 11am and 1.30pm. There were also buses to High Wycombe at 11am and 1pm.

Now all that will be left is the 9.30am service - which will now only run as far as Amersham-on-the-hill. There will be a return service at 1pm.

But Miss Clack said: “We need buses more than ever. In this weather people don’t want to hang around til 1 o’clock for a bus. It’s appalling.”

Miss Clack mainly uses the bus to get to Chesham to help look after brother Paul’s children. Her neice Stacy is a patient at London’s Great Ormond Street hospital.

Steve Burns of Carousel Buses said: “The main reason for the withdrawal is safety. The roads are not wide enough or good enough for the large buses we use.

“Over the last year or so we have been involved in three really serious accidents where our bus has stopped and the car has hit the bus head on.”

He added an average of 2.4 people used the service to Winchmore Hill each day.

He said: “We do sympathise with the people in Winchmore Hill and Penn Street that have been our customers but it’s not commercially viable. We’ve agonised for a long time over this.”