Letters: School bus service will improve peak time traffic

It is good to see that the regional council is now attempting to repair the serious damage inflicted by the National government when it replaced free with user pay for the school bus service.

When user pay was introduced the normally full buses became one third occupied. The other two-thirds travelled by car to school/college, causing real congestion during term times.

The new services will go some way to improving the early morning/early evening congestion, but initially, I can't see many senior college students parking up their cars.

The next couple of weeks are school holidays so the traffic will be much better!

Peter Turmer
Pyes Pa

Plight of the elderly

Kate Hawkesby presents well (Opinion, July 4) the plight of the elderly nowadays. Getting old is not for the weak, especially today's ageing generations whose lives began in a very different world.

They are a generation of people who were born during a world-wide depression and lived through the mightiest world war ever fought on this planet. Many served their country, others kept the home fires burning, and all endured years of rationing where nothing was wasted because we had to make do.

Now this vulnerable section of our society are not only scammed on their landlines, but they are having them taken away. As with doing business all their lives with cheques, those are also going.

Having been educated on the imperial system halfway through their lives, they had to learn to deal with dollars and cents and all different weights and measures.

They coped and did well. But older now many don't have computers and cannot cope with internet banking etc. (Abridged)

Gwyneth Jones
Greerton
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