IT is now becoming apparent that the fears put forward by the Conservatives at the time Hyndburn's then Labour council sold off the bus company are now coming to the surface.

Two bus services which served the Trinity Street and White Ash estate areas of Oswaldtwistle have been withdrawn recently, leaving the elderly and disabled there without a most necessary service.

It is no consolation that people were told this would happen when the then Labour-controlled authority sold off Hyndburn Transport.

Stagecoach and M and M, which ran these serves, are in no way controllable by the council and are free to withdraw services as and when they wish. This would not have happened if the council still had a say in the running of the buses.

The annoying thing about this whole sorry episode is that the money from the sale of this asset was pumped into the Globe Centre, in Accrington, which, although now successful, should have been funded by private money and not the sale of essential services.

JOHN FARRER, Mallard Place, Oswaldtwistle.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.