Bardwell Parish Council vice chairwoman explains why rural buses are important.

Karen Witton, Bardwell Parish Council vice chairwoman, explains why rural buses are important to everyone, regardless of their age.

Transcript

00:00I would say when we first started a lot of skepticism that we could actually do anything

00:06about this. We've been very commercial, we've been very realistic and we've been very proactive

00:12and about what we can do and trying to help by working with the bus company, working with the

00:18council to say what can we do and that's made a big difference. So we didn't have a petition,

00:24for example, I know some villages did but we didn't, the task force did not get behind a

00:28petition, we got behind actions and let's be really proactive on this. We have managed to

00:34get to a position where the bus service will restart on the 28th of December, so it's an

00:40even better result than just winning some bids. The council has understood that the importance

00:47of getting that bus service to run continuously. To some people it's the difference between having

00:53a job and not having a job, to some people it's the difference of whether their child

00:57can get to school on a reliable basis, to other people it's a case of I'm going to be isolated,

01:05I can't get in and meet my friends, I can't go to the shops and an overwhelming feeling of

01:10isolation. So it depends on your set of circumstances at this point in time but one

01:17of the things I would say to everybody is everyone is going to need a bus at some time in their lives

01:24and here in this village and in the other villages the rural communities have people who

01:29fit all aspects of needing a bus. We're making sure that the children in all these villages

01:35get properly helped to school at the right time and without that bus, which is our only public

01:42transport available in these villages, we are without any ability to keep our rural communities

01:50connected. So the message we can give people now is you are going to have a bus service and be able

01:55to go back to work, be able to get back to school as you can now and that's a fabulous position to

02:01be in. But underpinning all of this is people here must use the bus. Everybody in these villages

02:10make an excuse to use the bus, do your bit to use the bus and if everyone does that, it doesn't have

02:17to be every day, but if everyone makes a point of using the bus then I think we'll continue to have

02:22a bus service in 10 years.