Little buses give a great service

There has been quite a lot of negative comments about the new Little & Often buses recently and I thought it would be a good idea to jump to their defence.

The one advantage they have over the “big” buses is that they can easily nip round obstacles and obstructions in the road. It only takes a badly parked car or a delivery vehicle parked in the wrong place which means the “big” bus can’t get through, causing chaos and delays to the timetable for the rest of the day. This is particularly true on the narrow roads around the Willesborough and Kennington housing estates.

My wife and I use the C & G lines regularly. A couple of months ago the 6pm G Line service from Gladstone Road was delayed for a record 25 minutes, no doubt for the reasons above.

The new Routemasters introduced in London had the same ventilation problems – the designers forgot to put in the air slots in the windows which meant all the buses had to be taken out of service to have ventilation slots installed. Hopefully Stagecoach will do the same with every window in the new Little & Often buses.

Another factor in their favour is that they operate a latenight service to town every day of the week. My wife and I came out the local deaf club at 10pm in town. We only had to wait 10 minutes for a C line Little & Often service back to Willesborough. Obviously they do get full pretty quickly but you only have to wait five minutes for the next one and most of the time they travel around in pairs anyway. Brian Jackson Cudworth Road South, Willesborough and in the opposite direction, aromas from the what the schoolchildren referred to as the ‘Cuppa-soup’ (Batchelors) and ‘Stinks’ (Givaudan perfume) factories. So why the surprise? Since we issued that warning, considering the massive increase in through-put, the aromas from any of the plants in question seem to have abated somewhat.

What do people expect when the huge wastewater treatment plant is almost as a central feature of our town?

At least the residents of Little Burton Farm and Kennington are able to tell which way the wind is blowing by simply sniffing the air, as will those hundreds of extra people moving to new properties proposed for the Conningbrook area.

What use is a public meeting? The damage is already done, and it can only get worse. Ted Prangnell Kennington

Picture: Molly Mileham-Chappell FM4683662 Little & Often minibuses in Bank Street