AS a senior citizen, I am dependant on the bus service through Beechwood.

There may not be many passengers using this service, but for those who do, it is vital.

Of the few people who do use the service, most are pensioners, who do their weekly shopping at Halton Lea.

This bus service is of the utmost importance, without it, how would they get their shopping home?

According to the report in the World, July 26, the bus company Arriva have threatened to terminate services through Beechwood on September 4.

They may have a franchise with Halton Council to run a bus service in Runcorn, but does the franchise give them the right to chop and change routes?

If it does, do they intend to chop all routes that fail to fill buses to their liking?

If this is the case, maybe Arriva should look seriously at the services to Murdishaw and Runcorn East.

Buses regularly leave Halton Lea North travelling to Murdishaw and Runcorn East with five or six passengers and quite often they are empty.

At the last population census survey, there were more people living in Beechwood than there were in Murdishaw and Runcorn East put together.

Why then is it that there is a bus to Murdishaw every one to two minutes and a bus to Runcorn East every three to four minutes?

Whereas residents living in Beechwood can expect one Arriva bus every hour.

Except, of course, when they have the audacity to take the bus off to run children home from school, then it becomes a two hour service.

Not only could Arriva provide a bus for the school children from the Runcorn East service, they could also run a half hour service through Beechwood, by down-loading the over-subscribed service to Runcorn East.

If residents of Beechwood complain about buses being late or missing, we are told that if we live in Beechwood we should have our own car.

I would like to point out that there are plenty of people living in Murdishaw and Runcorn East who also own their own cars.

This, maybe, is the reason why so many buses leave Halton Lea, going in the direction of Runcorn East, empty!

These buses hold a lot more passenger, 46 seated, 21 standing, than the tiny buses on the Beechwood service.

Seemingly, someone at Arriva headquarters has his/her wires crossed and needs to question their tenability!

A Day, Snowdrop Close, Beechwood, Runcorn.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.