From Duncan Watson

Friday, 13 February 2015

I note that all Calder Valley candidates in the General Election which is less than three months away have responded to questions on public transport policies (See HebWeb News item, 10 Feb). In the summer of 2013 when the local bus service was under threat and the General Election was close to two years away Josh Fenton-Glynn was the only one of these who contacted the Hebden Bridger bus user group that was established to fight the proposed bus service cuts.

Josh contacted the group on his own initiative and asked what he could do to help the campaign. In my role in that group I had two long conversations with him late on weekday evenings where he demonstrated that he understood clearly what was at risk in the local community if the proposals to the services came to fruition. (Roughly there was a risk of buses serving local routes having only a quarter to a third of the current capacity and insufficient space for wheelchairs, pushchairs or shopping and thus forcing many people to walk, buy a car or use a taxi and peak times.)

Josh then contacted other members of the local Labour party and in particular the Chair of Metro Cllr James Lewis. He explained the situation to Cllr Lewis and arranged for him to take a ride on one of the routes that would be affected under the proposals. Cllr Lewis was able to see at first hand the impact the proposals would have and to discuss this with local users of the route. I am certain that this had a significant impact on Metro's decision making about this issue and this is entirely due to Josh's intervention.

Following this Metro commissioned a provider (TLC) who have installed new buses at the same capacity as the previous route; and while there has been some necessary compromise given decreasing centrally imposed budgets I am confident that the service we currently have is very much the better for the work of Josh Fenton-Glynn.