If the local authority cannot produce a better facility for bus users to catch or change buses in Colchester than its present “temporary”

bus station, then this must be retained until it can.

It is ridiculous to suggest that because the temporary bus station has been scheduled to close in a couple of years, it cannot continue in use beyond that time, or until a better facility is in place.

As it is, pedestrians cannot move along St John’s Street easily when a number of passengers are waiting there, and the same occurs in Head Street, Queen Street and the High Street.

Moreover, if there are several buses taking in passengers at the High Street, St John’s Street and Head Street stops, other routes approaching cannot see the passengers hailing them and do not stop.

It is not just local people inconvenienced by this, but our many visitors as well.

The only place to be confident of catching the bus needed is the temporary bus station. And, even though not all buses pull in there, the shelters are often full up with waiting passengers.

The town’s economy and prosperity is dependent on good public transport links.

A common sense approach, therefore, would be for the local authority to acknowledge its past blunders and lack of foresight and accept the temporary bus station has to become a permanent one.

It might even be enlarged to cope with the increased number of bus users from the thousands of new homes being built in the borough.

B J Butler
Guildford Road
Colchester