Saturday 14 July 2012

Brighton Greens, playing at politics - administrative failure and splitting the city.

I was horrified find that the 52 bus service from Ovingdean was being cut.

The bus service from Ovingdean has never been spectacular, however it did at least connect the village to the centre of brighton going to the marina past the hospital and then via the main shopping centre on to the train station.

I use this service when getting to work in Brighton and one of my sons uses this service to get to college in Brighton where lessons can start at any time during the day.

However, I am even more horrified to discover that the savings made by cutting this service were  inaccurate by around £50,000. Further I understand that having found this £50,000 underspend, instead of it being used to save Ovingdeans one direct public transport link to the city -  the 52 bus service - it is being transferred away from Ovingdean to be used to subsidize bus services in other parts of the city.

I am at a loss to understand, firstly, how such a huge financial mistake could have been made in the city budget by the green party, but further how such a mistake could have been missed by councillors of all parties sitting on the city council.

If a mysterious late lower bid had been discovered as a result of corruption it would at least he understandable. However, for it to have been the results of poor administration beggars belief.

I understand `Big lemon` the company providing the new service do not currently use the same ticketing system as the existing Brighton bus service. As the cut 52 bus service will not take travellers to the city any more, travellers will need to change buses and so have multiple tickets and possibly lose out on discounts. If Big Lemon are to upgrade their ticketing systems I hope this is not funded by the public purse, otherwise our only direct public transport to the centre of our own city will have been destroyed simply to finance an upgrade to a private companies own assets.