Herefordshire Council is correct to focus on public transport for travel throughout the county.

More roads and more cars is not sustainable into the future.

We are in the middle of a third wave of the pandemic and I am keen to return to bus and rail as my main form of transport.

To ensure my safety I have enquired of the railway companies and I am assured that fresh air is vented into carriages from outside via filters and vented out again, ensuring a flow of air.

The bad news is that masks are not mandatory and when only two carriages arrive all passengers crowd into them.

I have made similar enquiries of the bus companies and so far Stagecoach have replied that there are no ventilation systems on buses as in railway carriages.

The ventilation is via windows which must be kept open (passengers often close them because they don't understand that covid is an airborne virus).

Masks are not mandatory because the company is "following government guidelines" - pretending that the pandemic does not exist.

In my ideal world, buses would have modernised ventilation systems, masks would be mandatory during a pandemic, buses would run hourly and into the evenings, my railway station at Stoke Edith would be reopened, and I would only have to resort to the car when it is too far to walk to a neighbouring village. 

Janette Ward

Tarrington

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