Our Tatton MP is demanding assurances from council chiefs that her constituents will benefit from a Government cash injection to subsidise buses – after she was told routes could not be reinstated due to lack of cash.
Esther McVey wrote to Cheshire East Council on Thursday, 25th February, asking them to set out how they will be spending their £270,000 allocation for the next financial year.
Ms McVey hopes some of the money will go towards ensuring the 130 route, which no longer goes beyond Handforth can either be reinstated to travel to Parrs Wood or can be extended to connect with another service that goes there.
Ms McVey said: "I have met with lots of users of the 130 route and heard how vital the service is to them. Having lobbied on the issue, I was delighted when D and G took the service on between Macclesfield and Handforth as it is a vital link to the Hospital, schools and work for many residents. I was equally pleased when the Council agreed to subsidise the Saturday service. The missing link has been a service onto Parrs Wood.
"I put together comments and suggestions from all residents who contacted me and one of the recurrent suggestions was the possibility of linking up routes to ensure people can get where they want to."
Last week the council wrote to Ms McVey saying they agreed it was an option to look at connecting the 130 route with another bus, allowing passengers to travel to Parrs Wood but that their bus subsidy budget was already over committed.
Ms McVey said: "Having been told money was the problem I am asking Cheshire East to assure me that some of the £270,000 that has now been allocated by the Department of Transport will be spent delivering this service.
"I have made it clear to the council that this is just one of the services I would like to see supported within Tatton. High Legh, Little Bollington and Agden currently have no bus service at all and there are improvements needed across the whole constituency.
"I look forward to the council's response and will do everything I can to work with them to ensure people across the Tatton constituency have the bus services they need."
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
No need for the 130 to go down to Parr’s Wood as Cheadle is very well served by buses.
It strikes me that we are letting artificial borough boundaries get in the way of common sense. Rather than have this bus stand idle in the lay by for 40 mins, why not let it run into Wilmslow down Dean Row Road and Manchester Road returning by Addlington Road.
Dramatically widens access to public transport and probably gets a better route to Stockport (and on to Manchester) than an extended 130.
But will need CEC to work together with Stockport.
How about extending the 130 to a major transport Hub such as Manchester Airport Transport interchange. Just a short hop down the A555. That is when it's not flooded!
There are bus, tram and train links to many parts of "Greater Manchester" and the Northwest, and the UK. And also planes to wherever you want to go to, just a short walk along the "Sky Walk" or by Taxi if you don't want to walk!
If the 130 could extend to the limits of Handforth ie the Waggon and Horses that would help, or even to Cheadle Royal where it could turn round at the roundabout. I understand this might not be possible in rush hour as it may need more than the 2 buses.
Why can’t the Stockport to Manchester Airport bus, (is it the 313?) which actually goes along the A555 from the A34, come up the slip road onto Wilmslow Road, the old A34 and provide an airport bus route for Handforth people? This would also almost connect with the 130.
I am very aware that we have a large number of new houses being built away from the bus routes - and yet the government has said we need to be diverting people away from cars. Therefore, subsidising routes where there will be demand once people see a regular bus would help.. Who has been surveying where people are travelling to, and where bus use could therefore be improved?
Cheshire East has already spent £30,000 a year keeping the 130 route running on Saturday’s, so £270,000 does not go very far in this area.
We all want to see new buses on frequently scheduled routes but who funds this? It doesn’t stack up commercially and local government cannot afford it either, due to their ever reducing budgets and spiralling social care costs.
Therefore, central government needs to view buses as a social necessity and provide the funds needed to transform our services.
They are taking this approach with HS2 but I fear it’s £100,000,000,000 cost won’t leave anything to improve our other forms of public transport too.
Cllr Mark Goldsmith
Residents of Wilmslow
Cheshire East & Wilmslow Town Council
"FlexiLink is a demand responsive transport service providing an alternative means of travel for Cheshire East residents with a disability, are aged 80 or over, or who live beyond the reach of any other public transport.
The fare is £3 per journey if you do not have a bus pass.
All journeys must be pre-booked so that routes can be planned efficiently."
If, as has been commented, there is no bus service in Handforth, surely that means that any Handforth resident can use this service?
The money to build HS2 (the actual price for which no-one can know at this stage, but is unlikely to be anything like as high as £100B by the way - don't believe all you read in the Daily Telegraph) is a one-off borrowing against the future economic growth it generates, not a pot sitting there to be spent on 'this or that'.
We need a properly funded local bus service AS WELL AS the quiet, clean two-track electric railway that is HS2 (without which we'll have to build hundreds of miles of new 8-lane land-gobbling noisy polluting motorways since our railways are almost full and the demand for moving people and goods is ever-increasing).
It may well be that to afford realistic levels of on-going local transport subsidy we will have to pay more tax, as those countries that enjoy good public transport do. You get nowt for nowt.