Campaigners protest over bus service cuts

Devon County Councillors were met with a colourful and noisy protest by campaigners today as they met to agree £1.7m cuts to County bus services.

Councillors were greeted with a new version of the well-known children’s song, ‘The wheels on the bus’!

The protest was organised by Exeter Green Party who describe the cuts as ‘devastating’, particularly for the old, the young, job seekers and those unable to drive or who choose not to.

Diana Moore who organised the protest said: “The County’s own Equalities Impact Assessment makes clear, these cuts will have a detrimental effect on the most vulnerable in our communities, especially in rural areas. These Tory cuts are the direct result of the politics of austerity that has been inflicted on the people of Exeter. As with all austerity policies, bus cuts will have the greatest impact on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.”

Greens have long campaigned on the issue of bus cuts in Devon. In April Green party members boarded buses and stood at bus stops to talk to passengers about the proposed cuts to bus services in Exeter and across the County. Many hundreds of passengers completed postcards to the County Council, opposing the cuts. Exeter’s Greens also launched an online petition. In total the County received over 2,600 objections to the £1.762m cuts.

Greens believe that a series of measures could make help make bus services more commercially viable and less dependent on subsidies.

Diana Moore said: “The County Council should be investing in priority measures which make the bus a more attractive and faster option for travellers/commuters. This could include more bus lanes, which operate for longer, and priority signalling. These ‘invest to save’ approaches have been used in other service areas for years.

"At a time of increased population in Exeter and Devon; when congestion is increasing; when air pollution continues to affect our health and when we urgently need to reduce our carbon emissions, now is the time to invest in our public transport infrastructure, not introduce savage cuts.”