Why isn't your correspondence column filled with complaints about the new bus service First York want to foist on us?

Far from 'demonstrating a commitment to make public transport an easy to use alternative to the car', they are a recipe for increased use of private transport and would see a marked deterioration of the present service.

For my own situation there would be:

* No through services to the hospital unless I want to travel round the outside of the city via Clifton Moor, Poppleton and the Designer Centre.

* No through services to York Theatre Royal.

* An hourly service to Acomb compared with four times an hour. This applies equally to the residents of the Cornlands Road area for whom Acomb is the natural local shopping area.

* No improvement to the station.

* Longer journeys on return from York.

* A small improvement on journeys to Askham Bar - where I seldom go!

For those travelling from/to the Woodthorpe/Acomb Wood areas and York, the service is reduced to two per hour compared with four per hour, and they are deprived of services to the Theatre Royal and York District Hospital.

The less frequent services combined with the theory of 'key interchange points' will make personal journey times much longer and journeys more inconvenient, thus further dissuading people from using buses.

Perhaps if they get rid of passengers completely, First York would run a perfect service.

John Ibbott,

Tedder Road,

Acomb,

York.