Three days

Another month, another Public Transport and Buses Working Party. These come around with alarming frequency. This working party meets more often than all the other working parties combined. Some would consider this a good thing - well the Chair would anyway. Cllr Stephen Aylen enjoys this talking shop.

Julian Elliott of First Buses was amongst the attendees (eleven males, two females). I questioned him about the changes to healthcare provision and what impact this would have on bus services.  I also asked about the possibility of new routes, and received a somewhat unsurprising, and unconvincing, reply (which suggested that new routes might come, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that suggests that no routes have been created in decades, and that buses routes are shrinking nationally). I also asked whether any buses that would be removed from London owing to new directives regarding emissions would be recycled to Southend-on-Sea - not from First Buses.

The working party agenda also included an item on Bus Service to Poppies:Wave Sculpture and Other 125 Years Celebration. It turns out that the plans include access by bus, taxi, coach, walking, and by motor vehicle.

SEMF event, Bollywood music

That was Thursday. Friday saw my last stint at the Winter Night Shelter at Ferndale Baptist Church. Saturday night, and the Southend Ethnic Minority Forum Spring Event at St Aiden's in The Fairway. At the SEMF event I not only had Sir David Amess MP join my table, I was name-checked from the stage. I was only a spectator, but SEMF always seemed pleased when a councillor attends their events, and I was one of two yesterday (West Leigh Cllr Fay Evans, the deputy mayor, was also there.)