A Somerset mum says bus cuts mean her son has to leave for his summer job in Bath three hours before the start of his shift, despite living in a village “just up the road.”
Vanessa Bradish described her family’s situation as “very typical of people living in this area.” The family live in Tunley, just a 15-minute drive from the centre of Bath. Ms Bradish said: “Tunley’s just up the road.”
But the village’s two bus services, the 179 and 768, were both cut after a funding row between Bath and North East Somerset Council and the West of England Metro Mayor, each insisting it was the other’s responsibility to fund subsidised buses.
Ms Bradish said that in order to get the bus into Bath, her son now has to walk to Peasedown St John and catch the 522 from there.
She said: “He might have to leave really early, say about 10am, because he has to walk half an hour to get to the bus.
“They only come once an hour so he has got to time that hour and a quarter journey time to make sure that he’s in by 1pm.”
But even before the village lost its buses, Ms Bradish said the bus had not been reliable and had caused them challenges.
She said that her daughter had been caught in a “vicious cycle” of wanting to work to pay for driving lessons, but not being able to get to Bath to work due to the buses, and had now moved to Bath, partly due to the transport issues.
Ms Bradish, who works at a school in Timsbury, does drive but had to stop for a period last year while receiving medical treatment.
She said: “I got diagnosed with cancer last year and had to have chemo.”
Ms Bradish is now clear of cancer but said: “During that time I was quite isolated really. Because of the lack of buses, my daughter couldn’t get to me.”
She added: “There were a lot of times when I was alone in the house all day when I would have been able to go on a bus if the buses were regular enough.”
She said: “Just please bring us a bus service back to go through Tunley.”
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
