I HAVE delivered this letter by hand to your office having travelled to Hexham on what Northumberland County Council has decreed will be the last, direct, once-weekly- on-a-Tuesday, service bus between Ridsdale and Hexham.

The journey takes approximately 35 minutes and allows about three hours, 15 minutes for people’s appointments, shopping, etc. before the return journey.

It is to be replaced after Saturday, August 1, by a Friday service for the benefit of the communities of East and West Woodburn, and Ridsdale, which involves two different buses, a journey time of about one hour, 25 minutes each way, and only two hours, 15 minutes in Hexham.

Considering the fact that almost all of those who need to get to Hexham on the bus are pensioners – at least one over 80 years of age – are not as lithe and lissom as they used to be and, in some cases perhaps, not as comfortably continent, I can foresee some problems.

Had it not been for the diligence and persistence of Corsenside Parish Council in eliciting towards the end of last week details of the bus service changes, the populace would have been unaware of them, as the county council has had neither the consideration, nor the decency, to give proper notice itself.

If all this is indicative of how Northumberland County Council is inclined to treat its rural elderly, then may the Lord help us.

I’ll venture that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the south-east of the county.

PETER STOBIE,

Ridsdale