Bus cut strands village

PEOPLE living around Fletching have been devastated by the withdrawal of a bus which they say was an integral part of their lives.

The 246 service took children to and from school, made it possible for villagers to spend the length of the school day in Uckfield, and provided travel links to other parts of the country.

Mrs Terie Galpin has been particularly hard hit because she doesn t drive and depended on the bus to take her seven-year-old daughter to school, her four-year-old son to pre-school, do her family shopping and get to a neighbouring village to run a Rainbow Guide unit.

In all about 15 children attending Fletching Primary School have been affected by the cutback which follows a county council decision not to subsidise the service at school times.

'The contract for the service was coming to an end and when the tender came in for the new contract it was very expensive, requiring a very high subsidy from us to keep it going. We weren t able to do that, said a county spokeswoman Jan Wright. She said it would have cost at least 1,500 for each child to subsidise the service.

Mrs Galpin said she felt vulnerable and isolated by the loss of the service but she praised the council s County Rider section and education section who were doing their utmost to sort something out for the school run.

At the moment children aged under eight living between two and three miles from the school who are entitled to free transport are being ferried there by taxi. Others who do not qualify for the free transport are paying the bills themselves.

Mrs Galpin is grateful that bigger taxis than might otherwise have been needed have been laid on and space provided for her seven-year-old daughter but said it was costing her 52 for half a term s fares.

Next year her son is due to start school and if this system continues she will then face costs of 104 for half a term.

Mrs Galpin, who lives at Lane End, Chailey, says that while she lives in the Chailey school catchment area she chose to send her children to Fletching because she was worried about walking along the busy main road to get to Chailey and the bus to Fletching made it possible for the children to go there.

'My two teenage daughters also went to Fletching. That school is part of my life. I can t take one child out who has been there three years.

At one stage it looked as if the Rainbow Guide unit run by Mrs Galpin at Newick would have to fold because she couldn t get there but now she has been offered a lift each week by a Scouter from Newick.

She has started cycling to Fletching to take her son to pre-school but her plans to return to work in Uckfield next year when he starts school are in jeopardy because the bus she would have used has gone.

But many other people are affected too, she said: 'Old folk just can t get out as much as they used to. The loss of the service is so isolating for them. We haven t got a village shop any more, or a Post Office and on top of that we are losing the doctors surgery which came twice a week to the village hall, said Mrs Galpin.

Headteacher at Fletching school Miss Sue Dale confirmed that about 15 children were affected by the loss of the service, though numbers using the bus varied from morning to afternoon and each day. She said the education authority was still working on the problem and she was hopeful they would come up with a solution.