People power forces bus bosses to look at improving 305

Options to be considered are diverting the 336 and making the 305 an hourly shuttle service.
At a public meeting in Seer Green last night (Wednesday) Andy Clarke, group manager for transport services at Buckinghamshire County Council, agreed to seriously consider options put forward by bus users.
Around 40 people braved thick snow - many using the bus - to attend the meeting tonight at Seer Green Baptist Church to question Mr Clarke.
The meeting was organised by the village after the 305 bus service from Uxbridge to High Wycombe via Seer Green was reduced from January 4.
Mr Clarke took questions for an hour from angry villagers who said the reduction of the Arriva service to five buses per day during the week and just two bus to Uxbridge on Saturdays means it is no longer useful.
He started out by saying that he had no option but to cut those parts of the service that are least used. The 305 is council funded because it is not commercially viable.
Mr Clarke said: "I would love to be able to provide a high frequency bus service every hour, half hour or quarter of an hour to everywhere in the county, but the department has a budget cut of £400,000 and a lot of communities this size have a lot fewer buses per day."
However he was persuaded by the meeting, chaired by Parish Council chairman Phil Clarke, to look into three options.
Firstly, he and Mr Clarke will request a meeting with Carousel, which operates the 336 from High Wycombe to Watford, and ask the company to consider diverting via Seer Green.
This could work if Carousel were prepared to do this for less than the cost to the council of running the 305, he said. It costs the council £60,000 per year to run the 305.
Secondly, he will look at changing the current 305 time table following consultation with villagers via Phil Clarke in Seer Green and bus user Colin Walker in Chalfont St Giles.
Finally, he will talk to Jason Tours, which now operates the 305, about turning it into an hourly shuttle between Beaconsfield where passengers can connect with buses to High Wycombe, and Chalfont St Peter, where they can connect with the A30 and 336 to Uxbridge, Amersham and beyond.
He will also find get figures to demonstrate whether or not those connecting buses are reliable.
However he said that if people chose this option they would have to be prepared to change buses at Chalfont St Peter or Beaconsfield to make onward connections.
Phil Clarke said that this option would only work if there were proper bus shelters and if the 305 arrived ten minutes or so before connecting buses.
Phil Clarke said the results will be reported back to bus users, and the best option decided on by a vote at a second public meeting.
Andy Clarke said he had had to reduce the timetable after the previous operator, Arriva, gave notice that it no longer wished to run the service.
The new operators, Jason Tours, were charging the council £75,000 per year compared to the £36,000 that it cost under Arriva. The council would only make back £15,000 in fares.
The council has a four year contract with Jason Tours which can be terminated by either side with 120 days notice.
He said the service was being operated with just one driver, who needed a lunch break and could only work for eight hours at a time.
Villagers told him that if the buses were more frequent , more reliable and ran earlier and later, that far more people would use them and they could make money.
Caroline Lamb of Chalfont St Giles said: "If you put buses on when people want to go you'd get more passengers. I'm scratching my head as to how we can use this service, it's no good, you've wasted your money."
A woman from Chalfont St Giles said the bus need to run earlier and later so that commuters could use it to get to and from the train station.
A man who commutes from Loudwater to Chalfont St Giles, changing at Beaconsfield, said he could no longer use a weekly or monthly ticket. Andy Clarke said he would talk to Jason Tours about accepting weekly or monthly passes.