James Freeman, Chief Executive of Reading Buses who kindly spoke with and listened to residents in Caversham about the bus route changes contacted the Liberal Democrats today to inform us of the latest twist in what is fast becoming a confusing situation, he told us:

I think that I may have explained that the last minute change that we made to the route of the 22 to divert it via the Mount and Kidmore Road was subject to acceptance of the short term-variation by the Traffic Commissioner.

We yesterday received a letter from the Traffic Commissioner refusing our short term variation application variation for the diversion of route 22 via Kidmore Road .

This means that we will have to divert 22 back to the originally registered route via Oakley Road until the full 56 days has elapsed, namely on Wednesday 9/11/11.

In addition, the Commissioner has received information from members of the public alleging that Kidmore Road is dangerous for use by buses because of its narrowness and the junctions at both ends.

We are therefore required to change the route of the 22 as soon as possible in order to comply with the Commissioner’s instructions.

We must then revert to the Kidmore Rd route at the conclusion of 56 days’ notice subject to any action that the Commissioner may wish to take as to the suitability of the route in question.

We will do our best to communicate this change to users by means of a door drop, leaflets on buses and e-mails/letters to as many people as we can. The temporary change starts tomorrow, Saturday.

I attach a copy of the notice that we intend to distribute as widely as possible today and over the week-end. In fact, we have staff out in the area as I write and we shall be distributing the attached leaflet door to door this evening in the areas directly affected.

As you may imagine, this is not what we had hoped.

The Community Link service 28, sponsored by Reading Borough Council, is unaffected by these changes and continues to provide a service via Albert Road, The Mount and Priest Hill as it has been doing since 26th September.

Annette Hendry, local Liberal Democrat campaigner said:

“We were delighted that Reading Buses had listened to the concerns of Caversham residents and had worked with us to make adjustments to the planned route of the pink 22. Though this latest development will no doubt cause confusion, we shall continue to campaign for bus routes that are both safe and useful to the residents of Caversham.”

“I’d like to thank James Freeman for his support and for giving us notice as soon as he could of both the concerns of the Traffic Commissioner as well as the changes to the bus route and I look forward to working further on this matter in which many local residents have such a large stake.”

Cllr Annette Hendry commented –

“We have been working with residents for years to secure improvements to the roads and footways in this area, particularly to make conditions safer and more convenient for pedestrians.

Several years ago we launched a petition calling for the pedestrian crossing on Buckingham Drive to be upgraded, which attracted huge support. Due to our continuing pressure I am delighted to say that the Council has at last managed to listen to the people of Emmer Green and to find the necessary funding to enable the work to go ahead.”