Villages around Huddersfield are being badly let down by poor public transport - Yorkshire Post Letters

While the people of Leeds have been spending the summer enjoying £2 daily trips to Scarborough and Whitby courtesy of Mayor Tracy Brabin, the elderly and non-drivers of Stocksmoor, Thunderbridge and Thurstonland have been having to pay around £30 for a round trip by taxi to visit their GP surgery about three miles away at Kirkburton and similarly for any prescribed procedures at outreach clinics at Holmfirth.

They have no public transport access to a local dentists, pharmacy, Post Office, library or any kind of shop.

Householders in the above rural villages pay the highest Council Tax rates in Kirklees but yet have no infrastructure to allow them to live normal daily, independent lives.

18 months ago, February 11, the TYP published my letter appealing for a bus service because non drivers were still living ‘lockdown lives’ after the pandemic - nothing has changed.

We meet the Government criteria of having an ATM cash machine in Kirkburton but no bus means we can’t get there. The people concerned are the ones most likely to want cash to pay for everyday needs in their homes - window cleaning, gardening, deliveries, mobile hairdressing etc.

A survey was completed nearly three years ago proving a need for a bus service between Kirkburton and Holmfirth. A proposed timetable was produced but whenever a tranche of money has been received from the Government, the needs of our residents have not been addressed by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, run by Mayor Brabin.

Instead she has chosen to use available money to keep on subsidising her daily seaside ventures to the tune of £13 per person per trip. I believe the double decker buses have been full most days. I understand this will continue through next year as well.

With the likelihood of more money being received from the abandonment of HS2 in our region, we live in hopes that it will be allocated in a fair way and not all of it disappearing into a seemingly all-consuming hole in the centre of Leeds.

Speaking in Keighley in September about cheaper bus fares for young people Ms Brabin was quoted in your report saying “The focus is making sure people get around and get to places when they want to”.

We entirely agree and await a positive response to our pleas for a small bus between Kirkburton and Holmfirth. This will allow so many, young and old, to have more opportunities and independence so that they can enjoy the kind of daily life that is taken for granted by others living in neighbouring villages in HD8 and HD9.