Huddersfield’s Free Town Bus could face axe

Sep 23 2010 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUDDERSFIELD’S popular Free Town Bus could be scrapped.

The service is in line for the axe as transport bosses struggle to cut their budget to cope with the public spending squeeze.

The town centre bus has carried more than a million passengers since it was launched four years ago.

But public transport chiefs will meet tomorrow to consider scrapping the Huddersfield Free Town Bus, along with similar services in Dewsbury, Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield.

West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority (WYITA) will also consider reducing subsidies to off-peak services, closing bus stations and cutting spending on bus shelter repairs.

The proposals have been drawn up to cope with public spending cuts which are expected to be announced by the Government next month to cope with the public spending squeeze.

Noreen Logan, chairman of Huddersfield and District Pensioners Organisation, spoke out yesterday against the plan to axe the Free Town Bus.

“This is very, very sad,” she said. “It’s a cut which will isolate older people.

“I’m sure our members will be very angry when they hear about this.”

Mrs Logan added that the Free Town Bus helped pensioners get round the town centre.

She said: “I was just talking to a woman in her late 70s who uses the free bus because she can’t walk from the Kingsgate Centre up to the bus station.

“If you’re elderly and you find walking difficult then it’s not a short distance from, for instance, St George’s Square to the Kingsgate Centre.”

Clr Andrew Cooper, whose Newsome ward covers the town centre, is also angry at the threat to the Free Town Bus.

He said: “This shows that the Government’s claim to be ‘the greenest ever’ is hollow.