{"id":3504,"date":"2018-02-22T21:22:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T21:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/?p=3504"},"modified":"2018-02-22T21:24:15","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T21:24:15","slug":"no-more-beyond-the-northern-wastes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/?p=3504","title":{"rendered":"No More Beyond the Northern Wastes"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the reduction of subsidies from Staffordshire Council<\/a>, our relatively recent discovery of Chasetown and Burntwood as places to drink and eat<\/a> looks like it will end in April, when the NXWM 10<\/a> bus route stops going further than Brownhills at off-peak times.<\/p>\n

This is a bit tedious; that’s exactly the sort of times I’d be wanting to use it, but it’s just an inconvenience: I don’t rely on that route for work. There’s changes to Arriva services too<\/a>, which means a Saturday evening trip to The Crystal Fountain<\/a> is out, too- and even a daytime visit would mean some clock-watching in early evening.<\/p>\n

As I said, this is just inconvenience for me, limiting my drinking choices. I’ll live. It could be more serious for working people (let’s not forget that not everyone works 9-5, and not everyone has access to a car).<\/p>\n

It is, of course, a direct result of council cuts, caused by government austerity measures, once again most seriously affecting the poorer people the most: those that can’t afford taxis or a car.<\/p>\n

The other factor here, of course, is our old friend bus deregulation<\/a>. The bus companies are private enterprises, with obligations to shareholders. They want t make money, so if a route isn’t profitable, and they’re not being subsidised by a council, they’ll stop running it- and who can blame them?<\/p>\n

Why is it a surprise our roads are choked by private cars?<\/p>\n

Good old free enterprise, working for the good of all, again. Thank $deity we’re free of the inefficient shackles of public transport run by non-profit organisations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the reduction of subsidies from Staffordshire Council, our relatively recent discovery of Chasetown and Burntwood as places to drink and eat looks like it will end in April, when the NXWM 10 bus route stops going further than Brownhills at off-peak times. This is a bit tedious; that’s exactly the sort of times I’d … Continue reading No More Beyond the Northern Wastes<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1,21,31,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars-driving","category-general","category-public-transport","category-pubs","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.piglet-net.net\/pigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}