Elderly residents are being forced to hobble, take painkillers, and walk hundreds of metres to ‘bleak’ bus stops just to get into town after their well-used service was scrapped - it is claimed.
People living in the Coton Hill area of Shrewsbury have been fighting to retain the number seven service since Shropshire Council announced it was cutting it in May.
Some £10,000 funding was secured from the Severn Loop Local Joint Committee which allowed the service to operate for a further six months but despite calls to find an alternative solution, Shropshire Council has now axed the service and days after it stopped bus stops in and around Coton Hill were removed.
Residents in the predominantly elderly area must now walk hundreds of metres to two alternative stops on Berwick Road and Ellesmere Road - neither of which have seats.
Betty Brown, 73, from Coton Mount, said she has been finding it ‘very difficult’ since the service was cut and while she used to go into the town centre up to four times a week, she now has to take painkillers just to make the trip.
“I have to walk now and have to take painkillers to make the trip, I’m so slow hobbling along it takes me ages.
“Most of the people up here are on walking sticks and we asked for the bus to be reduced to just two or three days a week so we had some way of getting into town but the Council wasn’t interested. It’s such a shame for people, it was well used.”
Bill Butler, said he and his wife Jean, both over 80, had been ‘hugely inconvenienced’.
“We have to rely on Dial-A-Ride which only runs three times a week and you have to book it days in advance so there’s no flexibility. We’ve lived up here for more than 20 years and we’ve always had a bus service,” he added.
Sylvia Wallace, 77, from Westminster Close, said: “I use the bus that comes along Berwick Road now but it’s only hourly and you never know when it’s coming so I have to wait at the stop where there’s no seats or a bus shelter, it’s very bleak.”
Mark Carolan, who has been leading the campaign to save the service, said residents feel very strongly that Shropshire Council has told them a lot of lies and abandoned them.
“If the bus had been decommissioned in May we would still have had another 90 days to use the bus and then could have had six months of funding from the LJC so we would have been able to use the bus into the new year and had some form of service during part of the winter.
“We’ve basically been told a lot of lies by the council, they never had any intention of helping us preserve the bus route,” he said.
Andy Goldsmith, Shropshire Council’s assistant director for public protection, said: “Following the termination of the number seven bus service a number of options were discussed with the local community to try and make the service sustainable.
“Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the local community, it has not been possible to make the community bus scheme sustainable in the longer term.”
The LJC committee considered the matter again in July, but members felt they could not support funding the community bus for more than the initial six months and the scheme finished operating on November 6.
“However, residents can continue to access hourly local bus services on Ellesmere Road and Berwick Road, and can also use the Shrewsbury Dial a Ride service,” he added.
by Anna Williams