ONE of the major stocks in WBC’s portfolio has always been its stake in our municipal bus company.

Renowned as one of only around a dozen publicly owned transport out- fits in the country, its future operations are under the microscope once again.

So here’s a challenge for chairman Maureen Banner and those who hold the purse strings at the Town Hall.

Instead of staging a ‘stakeholders’ meeting behind closed doors, to share the latest gloomy bulletin with councillors, host another bash for those actually affected, the poor benighted passengers.

You could throw open your books for the past decade (as a publicly owned and funded entity) and demonstrate just how desperate the current financial projections truly are.

Perhaps you could expect some searching questions regarding why our – not your – investment would not be better served by encouraging the likes of Arriva, Stagecoach and friends into the borough.

I’m a genuine bus user and have made similar suggestions for ap- proaching three years now, so this is hope over expectation talking.

Market pressures have whittled away Network Warrington’s servic- es to a shadow of its former incar - nations.

Just ask anyone foolish enough to make their way across town on a Sunday, or certain evenings.

And official figures earlier this year put the borough’s travelling passenger numbers down by just un- der a third, from 2009-10 to 2014-15.

Be under no illusions that a Government intent on starving out town halls – so we can all be ruled by huge and remote conglomerate councils – has been a major contributory factor in this sorry episode.

But being honest and upfront about the extent of our bus company’s plight, rather than allowing idle speculation to build and fester could be just the ticket.

Once again it was a sheer delight to dine at a Warrington town centre eaterie – even if the majority of the guests at The White Hart had one eye on the clock for the semi-final kick- off.

Half a pint of king prawns and ca- lamari was enough to prepare the way for beef chips with a kangaroo fillet, braised on one of those hot rocks which first saw the light of day in Warrington at the former Stone Grill on Buttermarket Street.

This isn’t a Trip Advisor review but satisfaction levels were high.

An obsession with all-you-can-eat Oriental buffets and raiding the whoops aisle at Asda don’t count as qualifications for anyone to be the next Jay Rayner.

An overwhelming sense of entitlement and self-regard, so beloved of every online critic who ever mashed a keyboard with their greasy paws, is also sadly lacking.

The Guardian’s own culinary awards were a fantastic piece of business, in your humble correspondent’s eyes. The standards are rising, not just in the old favourites like Lymm, Stockton Heath and Culcheth, but across the board and right in the heart of the town.

Another relic of Podium’s past appears destined to be repurposed for 21st century living.

Plans have gone in for the Raddon Court building to be converted into 24 apartments.

One of the reasons, other than bone idleness, that I’ve stuck with writing and newspapers down the years was forged in that DIY mecca.

No-one ever had a more inept apprentice than my old man, who is still, along with my former neighbour, one of the most practical individuals I’ve ever encountered. He will try his hand at fixing or fitting anything.

Other than holding things, occasional lifting and showing the mechanical aptitude of a caveman with a blunt rock, this gene was never passed down.

The keyboard life became a prerequisite for keeping body, soul, and not necessarily mind, together.