Labour's Hull and East Yorkshire mayor candidate pledges free coastal bus travel in summer
Labour’s Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral candidate has promised free bus travel to the coast in summer months to revive the great British seaside holiday.
Margaret Pinder told The Yorkshire Post she could not “get over the fact that there are kids in Hull who have never seen the sea”.
“When I was growing up that was unthinkable,” she added.
Ms Pinder has pledged that in July and August any bus going to the coast will be free for anyone, regardless of age.
“It gets people onto the buses, it gets people into the mindsight of using buses,” she said.
“It gives families the chance to have a day out at the sea, bringing back the great British summer holiday.”
Ms Pinder also wanted to give greater support to coastal communities, which suffered during Covid.
“It’s a boost for tourism and a boost for local businesses,” she explained.
The Labour candidate told The Yorkshire Post that, if elected, she plans to use the free bus travel to go to Bridlington South Beach.
“My uncle and aunty were in Bridlington, so we used to go there and it’s a really lovely beach,” Ms Pinder explained.
“But all the way down the coast, we’ve got beautiful beaches.
“They’ve got great fish and chips - everything you could want from a seaside holiday.”
Her other main pledge is to find and fill every pothole within a year.
“A lot of money has come from government, so it’s really holding the councils’ feet to the fire to make sure they deliver on that,” she explained.
“It’s become emblematic of the way in which infrastructure has been allowed to degrade and it really does affect people.”
Ms Pinder has also said she will help tackle the 8am GP scramble, by taking over abandoned properties to create more community healthcare centres.
She wants Hull and East Yorkshire to become a trial area for Respect Orders, which are being brought in by the Home Office to help councils ban persistent anti-social troublemakers from town centres.
Voters will go to the polls on 1 May in an election which will see the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber covered by elected metro mayors.
It is expected to be a rare four-way race between Labour’s Ms Pinder, the Conservatives’ Coun Anne Handley, Lib Dem Coun Mike Ross and Reform UK’s Luke Campbell.
The Liberal Democrats control Hull City Council and also have a presence in the other local authority, the East Riding of Yorkshire, where the Conservatives are the largest party.
The MPs across the region are split between Labour and the Tories, while in the polls Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is surging.