Railbus - Town Council asks for views
Locally subsidised bus services come up for review approximately every four years. Amongst other services that Oxfordshire County Council are currently reviewing in December this year are the following routes which directly affect Charlbury:
- 20A Oxford-Woodstock-Stonesfield-Charlbury
- 69 Witney – Charlbury – Chipping Norton
- C1 Charlbury Railbus
As your new (very new, i.e. only since May 14th) Transport Representative on the Charlbury Town Council, I am doing my best to learn as quickly as possible what are the various local concerns. I have already been to a meeting in Oxford of the Transport Dept. of the OCC which was discussing the revisions of Chapter 3 of the Oxfordshire Bus Subsidy Policy.
As many of you will have heard there is to be a more local review of the services with which our town is concerned, and accordingly Transport Reps. of all local parishes have been invited to meetings on Thursday, June 5th, either in the Memorial Hall, Charlbury at 2pm– 4pm or the Chipping Norton Town Hall, 7pm–9pm. I understand, however, that these are officially not for full public attendance, although I have been advised I could invite a few concerned members of the public to join me, since they may know more about the problems than I do. This meeting is to be structured around general discussion on the bus services of the whole area, and the OCC do not want to be involved in too much specific local lobbying, though obviously our great concern is the Charlbury Railbus.
However, they are, fortunately, asking for more detailed comments or suggestions from Parishes to be sent to OCC Transport Dept. by Friday July 4th.
I am therefore asking for two things:
1) Two or three Volunteers and users of the local bus services to accompany me to the meetings on June 5th. (contact as below, or ring 810914)
2) All comments for the July 4th deadline to be made in writing to me, Helen Bessemer-Clark, Spring Cottage, Sheep Street, Charlbury OX7 3RR or to Helen.Bessemerclark@btinternet.com .
You may obviously also contact the Town Council, through Roger Clarke, on 810608 but we hope to try to co-ordinate all comments through one channel. There is already a note on the Charlbury website specifically concerning the Railbus. While it is obviously OK to lobby especially on this point, it would be helpful if you could send Roger or myself copies of your views, so that we can route them through the official line. ie. we should all sing from the same hymn book – the noise is louder!
Helen Bessemer-Clark
Richard Fairhurst · Wed 28 May 2008, 17:57 · Link