Last night saw a meeting for district and parish councillors across the north east of Cambridgeshire to hear about the county council’s plans to drastically reduce its subsidy to bus services across the county. This process has been going on for about three years now and has finally reached us.

There was a short presentation followed by questions and answers.  Although statistics and other information were provided about the No 9 route through Sutton from Chatteris to Cambridge, it was clear that the county council is thrashing about for what, if anything, to do with it. At £1.53 per passenger journey, the subsidy on non-commercial journeys on the No 9 is not as large as for some routes, and the route clearly serves a purpose – predominantly for people to do their shopping but also to get to work or college, or visit friends and family. Messing about with it is unlikely to save much money, but very likely to make life very difficult for anyone without a car.

I raised the potential of linking Sutton by bus to Longstanton, to connect us to the Guided Busway and make for a more straightforward journey into Cambridge than that offered by the No 9. However, it’s clear that the county council’s process is interested only in trying to save money on the non-commercial routes; anything else, including any prospect of evening and Sunday services, they are leaving entirely to the energies of the commercial transport providers such as Stagecoach.

What was interesting was the survey table showing that around half of all journeys on this long route started in Sutton, making our village the single biggest market for this service.

There will be a further meeting in a few months’ time which will bring forward some proposals for people to consider. The meeting lasted only a little over half of the time allotted to it.