Chevington residents and parish council demand reinstatement of vital Stephensons 15X bus service, which took residents to Bury St Edmunds, at packed extraordinary meeting

Scores of residents who attended a meeting over bus cuts have ‘demanded’ the reinstatement of a vital service.

Chevington Parish Council held an extraordinary meeting last Thursday regarding the reduction of the Stephensons 15X service through the village, which took residents to Bury St Edmunds.

Villagers wishing to travel to the town have been left with one bus at 7.58am from The Greyhound pub as well as a 4.07pm service.

At the meeting, attended by more than 50 people, parish clerk Frances Betts spoke of how she had not been informed of the change in service until almost the day it was reduced.

Stephensons, the operator of the service, previously told SuffolkNews the level of use from the village was ‘extremely low’, and there was demand to improve services to West Suffolk Hospital.

Parish councillor Jamie Robertson said Stephensons had taken grant money to improve a service to the hospital that was already there – through a link at Bury bus station – at the cost of depriving people in Chevington and other villages.

“(At the meeting) everyone there, on show of hands, demanded the bus service be reinstated. It is an unfair, bad and inefficient use of government money,” he said.

Stephensons said the service changes were made in consultation with Suffolk County Council, along with a small amount of government Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding.

To board the regular service to West Suffolk Hospital, which stops in Bury town centre, Chevington residents must walk two miles to Brooks Corner, of which parts of the journey are on roads without a footpath.

Brooks Corner does not have a signposted stop – the bus stops at the side of the road and passengers exit onto a grassed verge.

This has greatly affected the Dyer family, who moved to Chevington in 2010 from Wickhambrook, another village affected by bus cuts.

Mum Kate, 45, has three children, one of whom Molly is on the autistic spectrum and has hyper mobility issues in her legs.

This makes long distance walking particularly tricky. Kate does not drive but rides a motorcycle, while husband Simon works full time.

Having no service in the village leaves Kate and her children stranded during the school holiday times unless extended family are free to collect them.

“From the meeting we were advised the council and bus company had a nine month period collecting data, but no consultation with those who actually use the service,” said Kate.

“I would ask them where and when the data was collected, and why no compromise was considered – if not hourly services then why not a few pickups and drop offs in the morning and similar in the afternoon.

“There are still people in this village that need to get to town and the hospital that do not have their own transport. Or do we all need to get back into cars – what happened to helping the environment?”

Bill Hiron, of Stephensons, said in recent weeks before the removal of the service, an average of 2.4 passengers a day boarded the service at Chevington.

He said ‘in an ideal world’ both the hospital service and the village service would have been retained, but costs could not justify this.

Mr Hiron added, for what he said were the small numbers involved were, the Connecting Communities service was an acceptable alternative.

Cllr Robertson said this service was not a viable substitute as it was ‘ too expensive, unreliable and inconvenient’.