Bus service is a vital lifeline and should be saved

THOSE who do not use bus services rarely appreciate their importance to those who do. For many people in Torbay, particularly the elderly, the bay’s services are a genuine lifeline.

They enable people to get to the shops, to get to hospital, but perhaps most importantly they enable people to remain a part of their community.

Many elderly people rely completely on the buses to get out to see friends and family. Without the services, they remain in their homes, and lose that vital connection and interaction.

Today comes news that two community bus services which link Paignton and Torquay are to be taken off the road because they are losing more than £1,000 every week.

The 60 and 65 services, run by Ourbus Torbay as part of the Torbay Community Development Trust, were launched a little over 18 months ago and have been the subject of campaigns by their users.

However, it emerges that nine out of 10 of the passengers using the service are doing so on concessionary fares.

The services exist at least in part to help link elderly people with the wider community outside their homes.

But if it is only the elderly who use them, and they do so using concessionary passes, then they can never pay for themselves. That’s the riddle facing bus operators all around the country, and it’s one they can’t solve.

Torbay Council helped to buy the buses, and the Trust recognises the need for the services. But the sums simply don’t add up.

The buses will be off the road from December until at least next March while efforts continue to find a solution to that financial riddle.

We wish the Trust, the council and whatever funding agencies they can find luck with this, because they hold a lifeline in their hands and must not let it slip through.