HUTT BUS SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 64, 17 March 1927, Page 8

HUTT BUS SERVICE

(To tho Editor.)

Sir,—Your paper to-night contains a few statements which I desire to correct in connection with a report of last night's meeting of the Lower Hutt Borough Council. I, on behalf of a small-company in process of formation, applied for their support, quite unnecessary by the way, for an application to establish a but service from the outlying district! to the Town Hall of Lower Hutt. This was at the request of the Shopkeepers' Association, with the idea of encouraging those .residents to shop in the suburb instead of patronising our buses to Wellington. The local people who were lately so prominent in endeavours to place twelve new extra busea on the road to help further the influx to Wellington see. fit to give this new shopping venture no support on the ground that non-residents of the borough should be given preference of a service for which they never applied, and which was never refused by the Appeal Board, the council's' statements to the contrary notwithstanding. The fact ia that the proposed district to be served forms only a small part of a route applied for by a resident of Petone, supported by Mr. W. T. Strand, and which service the Wellington City Council

in its considered judgment refuted t<» license. This particular route has caused tne financial ruin of several bus proprietors in the past, consequently none ot the present bus proprietors are prepared to run it independently, but have agreed to share the lost by running it in conjunction, m the form of a small company with an up-to-date 30-seater bus. This will tap the Waiwetu and new railway settlements, bringing the resident* «nto the mam street of Lower Hut*. The present council does not uphold this proposal. Why? Mr. Strand stated btfore the Appeal Board lately thai; he considered twelve extra uuses wfse needed to take the people tcv Wellington, and utJess he thought that the people of Wellington would flock to the emporiums of Lower Hutt for bargains, he should certainly favour the running of one bus to brine the people into the shopping centre, so as to give them also the chance to participate in those endeavours to cheapen the cost of living.—l am, etc., ■ i»i. hi- t. A- HARE. 15th March. .