Who Decides

Cllr Fiona White, is very pleased that Safeguard Coaches are going to provide the town centre bus service which the council used to run for residents of Guildford. But, say Fiona, it is a shame that it will run for less hours in the day but I hope that eventually it can be extended so that it allows people to access the whole of Guildford in the afternoons as well.

In a letter to the Surrey Advertiser printed on Friday 21 Nov, Cllr White explains that the comments made by Cllr Westlake when interviewed by the Surrey Advertiser and the letter from Hon Alderman Tony Page have highlighted the way in which decisions are made at the borough council. It was the 10-person, single party Executive who made the original decision to cut the service. The only reason there was a wider debate is because Cllr Tony Phillips and I "called in" the decision for scrutiny by one of the back-bencher committees.

Lib Dem councillors on the committee proposed asking the Executive to keep the shuttlebus going for another six months, to allow time for a new contract to be investigated. If only the Conservative majority on that committee had agreed with us! We could have had a continuing service until Safeguard were ready to pick up the service in January.

Sadly the majority on the committee did not agree to that, and the recommendation which went back to the Executive was for a watered-down proposal to investigate town-centre transport. In response to this, the Executive again decided not to continue the shuttlebus but to trial the totally-inadequate 'Town Rider' dial-a-ride service.

Hence many of the 48 borough councillors had no opportunity to vote on the shuttlebus issue, despite the fact that all 48 are elected to represent the views of residents in their wards and of the borough as a whole. The best indication that residents have of the views of individual councillors is the recent article in your newspaper when we were all able to say whether or not we believed that the shuttlebus should be brought back.

In view of their privileged position as decision-makers, I believe the Conservative-run Executive has a particular responsibility to listen to the views of residents and to the views of other councillors. That didn't happen here, and the result has been the loss of the shuttlebus during the critical pre-Christmas trading period, hurting vulnerable residents and town-centre businesses alike. Shame on them!