Residents who use the 492 / 495 bus service will be relieved that plans to reduce it to a 40 minute service have been dropped.
Although this is a commercial service operated by Arriva, Merseytravel have agreed to subsidise the route to enable Arriva to keep the bus running a half-hourly service.
This is largely due to the volume of objections in response to the consultation. The Focus Team thanks everyone who responded to our survey. It shows that when we work together as a community, we can make a real difference.
Arriva strike action
Unfortunately, there is no sign of a resolution to the pay dispute between Arriva and their drivers. Last week, Allan Brame called for the City Region Mayor to intervene in the dispute and offer to chair talks between the two sides. This is a report in the Wirral Globe: https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/20578387.oxton-councillor-calls-resolution-bus-strikes/
91 and 91a service
Another small change has been announced for Oxton's bus services: the 91 and 91a route will be operated by A2B Travel from September 5th (taking over from Stagecoach). There will be no change to the route or timetable.
With a huge increase in the energy price cap looming later this year, Liberal Democrats have put together a radically different, targeted plan.
Cancel the planned October rise in the energy price cap, giving households across the country a £36 billion boost in dealing with the cost of living crisis.
Pay for this in part via a windfall tax, which fossil fuel companies will be able to afford thanks to their current huge profits. (BP and Shell alone made £29 billion in profits in the first six months of the year between them.) The rest of the cost would come from the boost in VAT revenues that higher inflation will bring the government.
A four-pronged programme of extra help for the least well-off households, with reinstating and making permanent the £20-a-week Universal Credit uplift, helping nearly five million households; doubling the Warm Homes Discount and extending it to everyone on Universal Credit and Pension Credit, taking £300 a year off the heating bills of around 7.5 million vulnerable and low income households; doubling the Winter Fuel Allowance, giving up to £600 a year to 11.3 million elderly pensioners to help with their heating bills; and an emergency home insulation programme, starting with homes in or at risk of fuel poverty.
As is so often the case, parliamentary select committees are much more honest and sensible than the government, even though they have a majority of Conservative members. The latest report about asylum from the Home Affairs Committee mirrors what Liberal Democrat MPs have been saying for months. Again, it seems that government policy is aimed at appeasing right-wing Conservative party members and ill-informed readers of certain newspapers rather than doing what is morally right.
It is unfortunate, but probably inevitable in our system, that politics encourages polarisation. You're either with us or against us - there's no middle way. Liberal Democrats remain convinced that Brexit was wrong. We will be poorer in many ways as a result. But that's not to say that we can claim that there are no advantages to Brexit. One advantage is to enable us to amend regulations we agreed to while EU members, where they no longer benefit us. Regulations often involved compromises between various countries and we can now focus on our needs. Therefore, over time, we can make the changes that are needed.
