Are Bridgend Labour Council Indulging In Political Spin Over Buses?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Now Bridgend as a county is a place not just of towns but also rural villages. And the council, to be fair have subsidised some bus routes from these villages to the main towns specifically to allow easier access to GP surgeries, libraries and the like as well as letting the residents of these communities do other things not available where they live.

But now blog villain Bridgend Labour council have threatened that all such subsidies will be axed as part of wider cost cutting measures. Cheekily though councillors have actually stated that the local residents need to "use them or lose them". Now this is cheeky for various reasons. Firstly because the whole reason for the cuts as a whole is because the lack of direct funding from the Welsh Labour government. That is what the Welsh Labour council stated during the summer. That's why regarding Bridgend Welsh Labour is blaming Welsh Labour.

Consequently to apparently deflect attention/responsibility to the people of these communities is nothing short of Welsh Labour spin.

Also though I would guess Bridgend Labour Council know full well that these communities would not be able to use the routes to the extent that would make it commercially viable. Why? Because they've been subsidising it. You don't subsidise something that makes money.

So the question is why did they subsidise these routes in the first place when they knew that they would not make money in the private sector? Well presumably because the people who would use the services would be the elderly, the unemployed, people finding it difficult to make ends meet. In other words the venerable in these communities. The venerable who when Bridgend Council started publicising these cuts claimed would be protected.

Cut these bus routes and it might be more difficult for a pensioner to visit his or her GP, or an unemployed person to go in a library to be able to look for a job online. These are the sort of people that the state should be helping.

There is though one other factor that needs noting. If these cuts occur then less people will visit the towns in the area spending money on the local economy. Particularly in the case of the urban tragedy that is Bridgend Town that will not help business.

Perhaps Bridgend Labour council will have damaged Bridgend Town further if this goes ahead.

Until the next time.