Cllr chris Clarance, of Marine Parade, Shaldon, writes:

Reference Bishopsteignton Village Bus Service –

I believe residents of Bishopsteignton will be pleased to know the successful outcome of the above issue.

The 184 service was subsidised by Devon County Council in the years to 2010 to the tune of £32,854 a year to have this service.

In April 2010 the subsidy was withdrawn by DCC with Country Bus continuing to run the service for another year without subsidy. During the week there were five buses a day, each way, doing the loop into Bishop stopping at the Ring O'Bells, for example.

After a year, taking us to April 2011, Country Bus announced it was going to withdraw from running this service, leaving Bishop without this 184 service.

DCC looked at this, not wanting to leave Bishopsteignton without a bus service, and came up with putting out a tender for companies to run a combined one bus service with the 174 route. What this meant in reality was that Bishop was to get only four buses a day, during the week, going each way. Indeed Dartline, not Country bus, won the DCC tender at £52,996 a year to provide this new combined 184/174 service. This Dartline service is for a lower floor easy access bus too.

However, it seems that Country Bus – I guess knowing the route well – have come back, without DCC having to produce any subsidy money and are going to run a further two 184 buses each way daily, one of which includes the early well-used bus which picks up at the Ring O'Bells at 9.19am arriving at Teignmouth at 9.30am.

The net overall result is that you now have six buses each way, one more than originally, plying the 184 route.

The Stagecoach no 2 main road service continues, as does the main road Country Bus 185 service, too.

Dare I say not a bad outcome in such dire economic times?THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION