SIR — The ongoing saga of cuts to local bus services is taking a turn which would be detrimental to the majority of older buses users.

I refer to the cry from some sections of the community that they would be happy to pay a nominal sum or even half-fare for their bus travel if only they could keep their buses.

This is the beginning of a very slippery slope which this disgusting Government has been taking us towards for the last six years.

It is not lack of patronage or pensioners’ free bus passes that have led to this situation but the Tories’ ideological and blind adherence to the mantra that the market solves everything.

Right now we know that they are totally and irrefutably wrong. The fact that we have to subsidise bus services at all is a damning indictment of the whole free market ideology.

Of course, the Tories in Westminster couldn’t give a damn whether or not we lose our bus services as it doesn’t affect them and, to make matters worse, our own MP has supported the current policy of austerity for the many and riches for the few through thick and thin and has made no representation whatsoever with a view to properly regulating bus services.

If he and the rest of his party had done so, we would not have seen the fiasco of the last few years, with competing bus services running a few minutes apart as entirely separate entities.

Had a proper regulatory system been in place I have no doubt that we would not now be facing the current situation.

However, we also have to look at the bigger picture.

First is a multi-national corporation that makes billions in profits across the world and we have been subsidising these profits by supporting bus services from our taxes, both national and local, where these services are deemed “unviable”.

The Tories make much play of individuals living on benefits’ and do their best to paint them as pariahs, yet they happily allow multi-national corporations to demand and receive benefits when it suits them.

There is, however, a sinister and largely unreported development happening in parliament as I write. The Tories are introducing a bill to prevent local councils from setting up their own bus companies and this despite the fact that where such entities exist they provide better services at cheaper fares.

Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than by looking at Scotland, where bus services in Edinburgh are thriving and usage is increasing, and Glasgow, where there is chaos and rapidly declining patronage.

I leave you to guess which service is provided by the local authority.

If this isn’t a case of the Tories siding with their big business cronies I don’t know what is.

Meanwhile, local bus users here are hoping to grab a few crumbs from the table before they are cast aside as so much dead weight.

I have no axe to grind with regard to the national bus pass scheme as I have a retired staff pass which entitles me to free travel on First group buses at all a times, so I would not be affected if the national scheme required some kind of payment.

I still don’t agree with those think it is a good idea and I will stand side by side with those who argue that OAP travel should be free.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you provide a decent bus service people will use it, but that fact seems to have been lost on our politicians, both local and national.

Take a look at places like London, Edinburgh and Nottingham and a number of others, to name but three, and you will see what could be done, given the political will.

The first step would be to repeal the 1986 Transport Act and give the Traffic Commissioners back the ability to properly regulate bus operators.

Alan Bond,

Helwell Green,

Watchet.