Bus service long overdue (From Warrington Guardian)

It is rediculous about the buses. i've lived here 5 years now and for 2 of those years I had no car, so if i missed the bus from town its a very long walk from winwick with a double buggy!! I think the main problem is that no one wants to claim responsibility for the village. It's that much on the border with St. Helens that nobody knows where it is! WBT won't send a bus to a place that its isn't sure belongs to it! ha

I've been on the 29 to Collins Green at different times of the day, after Lingley Green the bus was empty so why waste money on a route which is hardly used? Arriva do run through the viilage from St Helen's at night time so there is some service. WBT cannot justify a service which loses money.

The problem with bus services, especially in rural areas such as Burtonwood is the lack of passengers and funding. Currently, the WBT 29 service is run under a local contract from Westbrook and Burtonwood Parish Council. In short, they pay WBT to operate the service to a specified time and frequency. If WBT were to continue the service during the evening it would have to be run on a commercial basis (i.e. No external funding) leaving WBT to rely heavily on revenue collected by the driver. Unfortunately, this would be insufficient to sustain the service. However, the Arriva 329 service if I'm correct operates entirely on a commercial basis. They probably generate sufficient revenue to operate it during day time hours but again, during the evening, it is unlikely that it would be commercially viable which is why there is no link to Warrington after a certain time. As an ex-WBT employee, I used to receive many complaints and suggestions from residents of Burtonwood about this and had to give them the answer I've given here which I'm certain must have been very frustrating. The other frustration is that rail franchises in the UK get billions of pounds of government funding/subsidies every year and yet the bus and coach industry receive nothing at all. It seems to me the government is biased towards railways and in their eyes are seen as 'sexy' whereas the poor bus and coach operators are viewed as old fashioned and outdated. They go on about leaving your car at home and using public transport which is fine if you live in a town or city, but really, where is the incentive for the residents of Burtonwood and other similar villages to leave their cars at home? Sometimes, despite the exorbitant cost of running a car, it still trumps public transport. On a final note, I can only advise the residents of Burtonwood to take this to your local Councillor or MP to see if they could secure Government funding to run services during the evening time and tell them it's "Socially Necessary". Good luck!