'A note to the people who have their heads in the sand' - Your Letters: March 4

There is an assumption that it will work and benefit all of us, fares will be lower and they will run on time. It will probably cost between £11 million to £22m; Greater Manchester cost £125m. Councils are in debt already. Where is the money coming from? You are also assuming that you will be able to recoup the costs through fares or perhaps increase council tax, as you have made a gigantic mistake.

When this proposed service is evaluated after a year you will be made to look naive, to say the least. Now you may say I am talking a load of rubbish and my assumptions are based on guesswork and a badly worked out presentation of facts. To this I reply “so have you”.

Would it not be better to have a group of councillors to work with the present bus service providers to sort the problems out? Has no-one considered this cheaper option? This would allow for the monies to be spent on more deserving services, such as bins and potholes. You are basing your proposal on the Greater Manchester model with their yellow buses. The franchise has not been reviewed as yet to see if the proposed changes have done what its proposal indicated, and the assumption that there will be an increase in take-up of passengers and so increase the monies in payback to the councils.

I think the scheme is fundamentally flawed, hasn’t been thought through, the consultation period is short and there are 157 pages to read through to understand your proposal.

I can understand why only one person turned up at one of consultation meetings.

R Adams, Brierley Hill

I WANT TO GET BACK TO NORMAL

When’s it all gonna get back to normal?

Ok, I’m tired of watching all this bad news now

When’s the news gonna get back to normal?

I’m tired of knives. And all these terrible lives

When’s the news gonna get back to normal?

I’m tired of the soaps that don’t show any hope

When are the soaps gonna get back to normal?

And I’m tired of songs that seem to encourage doing wrong

When are songs gonna get back to normal?

I’m tired of ‘stand ups’ who just talk of their hang ups

When’s comedy gonna get back to normal?

And the films they’re all rot. They no longer have plots

When are films gonna get back to normal?

And you go into town and all the shops are shut down

When are towns gonna get back to normal?

I don’t feel normal about any of this. When am I gonna get back to normal?

Alan Jones, Halesowen

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