FOR car drivers cuts to bus services mean little. A part of them may even think “Well we shouldn’t run buses that don’t pay’’.

What they forget is there may come a time when they can’t drive and they too will be totally dependent on the bus. The 6 bus that used to link places like Shirley, the General Hospital, to North Bassett and Portswood has been cut completely. The effect on the elderly amongst others in the area has been devastating. They cannot now get comfortably to the doctors, shopping, the hospital – in fact cannot now carry on the normal activities of life. Yes technically they can get from A to B but only by taking more than one bus which means long waits in the cold, or the bus goes by full. Indeed some have been so determined not to become captives in their homes that they have struggled on, only to get sick from those long waits for the next bus. Please, please, bus companies and city council, do not abandon the elderly of North Bassett and Shirley. If ever there was a case for council subsidy for a bus service it is here.

S SMITH, scheme manager, LIZ MIZON, ward councillor for Bassett.