Bus service isn’t fit for a City of Culture

WE used to laugh at the 70s sitcom On The Buses – but National Express appear to run their services from Pool Meadow in a similar fashion.

Train operators and airlines are required to pay compensation for late trains or flights. National Express on the other hand appear to ignore their published timetables, alienate passengers, offer no apologies or compensation and get away with it.

Many of the local National Express bus services are a joke. Some monitors at the Pool Meadow bus stands are blank, no longer displaying bus times and when they have, buses have failed to turn up to schedule.

Surely Coventry City Council have the powers to invoke fines or penalties for such a terrible service?

At times, passengers are left waiting for buses that fail to arrive and then suddenly three can turn up at once.

Coventry will be the City of Culture in 2021 and visitors coming to the city will expect a bus service fit for purpose – not one that resembles a third class service. Mark Heffernan Mount Nod

ID doc problems for teenagers

A FRIEND of mine whose daughter is on a gap year from her studies wanted to earn some money so applied for a three-day-a week job at a city centre shop. It was only then the shop then asked for a driving licence and passport as a form of identification. This is also the same when you want to change banks, as I did some weeks ago.

How can a youngster be expected to have these bits of paper? They have a National Insurance Number, what’s wrong with that and other good references? Plus the fact that driving is not everyone’s choice and is expensive. So with no earnings, no driving lessons, the same applies with a passport – not everyone has one, or wants one, or can afford one when just leaving education. There may be a health or sight problem so as they cannot drive.

Make the system more fair when identifying people. If we were like our pets let us have an ID chip so as we could be recognised – even if we do not have a passport or driving licence. Then we could be recognised where ever we go.

Make the system more fair with or without carrying your paperwork every where you go. Sandra Camwell Keresley

Support for UHCW cancer services

I WOULD like to support Peter Burns MBE (Sep 24) in his defence of the loss of some cancer services to Birmingham.

Walsgrave hospital or UHCW has always had an excellent reputation for its treatment of all cancers and, as Peter says, the only one in the Midlands to offer robotic liver and pancreas cancer surgery.

So why move that resource and all that goes with it to Birmingham? Is the hospital there better, has it the capability to take all the cases seen in Coventry? No.

So please give your support to UHCW and insist the expertise we have here stays here. Sue Jeffs Binley

Saving lives worth the investment

FURTHER to your recent article concerning Coventry City Council’s decision not to allow defibrillators to be installed in the city centre (Sep 15).

As I understand the situation, the council were concerned that the structure containing the defibrillators would be “an eyesore, clutter up the city centre and hamper pedestrians as they make their way around the city centre”.

On Sunday, September 23, I heard an interview on Radio 5 with a representative of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club.

He was being asked about the use of defibrillators in and around their Amex stadium and stated that “we have ten machines installed for use on match days”.

In relation to Coventry city centre, a Premier League football ground is likely to be far more congested on match days.

In my opinion it would be a sensible suggestion for the council to contact Brighton football club to discuss their defibrillators, as it would seem that those in the Amex Stadium neither look an eyesore, clutter up the ground or hamper fans as the make their way to and from the ground.

Brighton must have thought that having life-saving equipment installed that would only be used on match days a good investment.

The benefit to the council, citizens and visitors to the city centre would be that the equipment would be available for use every day of the year and represent an excellent investment. Chris Norman Stoke Hill