FROME bus users could be facing a killer blow as a local council reconsiders its funding for the 267 evening services to and from Bath.
Local campaign group Frome and Villages Bus Users’ Group (FAVBUG) has said local people will be ‘marooned’ if Bath & North East Somerset Council (BANES) cuts its £19,000 subsidy and First stops running the late service.
The group is urging people to write to BANES and ask them to keep the evening service between Frome and Bath. If the service is lost there will be no buses leaving Frome after 5.48pm.
Frome woman Tracey Harding, who recently won a civic award for her tenacious campaigning, is fighting to keep the bus going.
Tracey said, “If the 267 ends, Frome, with its population of nearly 30,000, will have lost all its evening bus services. In the evenings Frome bus travellers would be totally marooned from the outside world.”
BANES is currently consulting on whether to keep subsidising the service, which runs to Frome from around 6am until midnight from Monday to Saturday.
FAVBUG says Frome passengers make up between 55% and 65% of the nighttime 267 users, and another 20% are passengers from Norton, Rode and Beckington, so as much as 85% of the 267 evening-time passengers live in Somerset.
FAVBUG called an emergency meeting last month to discuss the crisis, and has called on local councillors and the MP, David Warburton, to support its campaign.
A discussion is set to be held with Frome Town Council and other parish councils to see if they could work with First to maintain the evening services between Frome and Bath.
To find out more about FAVBUG’s campaign or to get involved, go to www.favbug.blogspot.co.uk
To respond to BANES’s consultation go to www.bathnes.gov.uk