I READ with disappointment (Times, March 10) comments from Cllr Sanders.  As a representative of the population of Yelverton he should know that each of the primary schools for this area are some considerable distance from the main population centre.

Cllr Sanders suggests that the proposal to withdraw school bus services in the area affects only or mainly parents who have chosen, for whatever reason, a school other than their designated primary school.  Our son attends his designated school and yet it is two miles away from our home.  Many of the parents of children attending the three schools serving the Yelverton area are, of course, in the same position.   

Cllr Sanders says that the council needs to protect services for the vulnerable and elderly. Perhaps a walk from Yelverton to Lady Modiford's school one day, (can I suggest on a foggy November morning?), crossing the A386, walking down a lengthy single track lane with no path, dodging speeding cars and vans, tractors and farm machinery will remind him that the elderly do not have a monopoly on vulnerability in this area.

Children may not be able to vote but I suggest that the well being and safety of the youngest members of the families he represents ought to be uppermost in Cllr Sanders' mind.  

The school bus service is essential transport for many of the children attending schools in the area, is well used, and has less traffic or environmental impact than the multiple individual car journeys that would replace it. 

If the frequency of buses on these routes must be decreased to save money then the obvious answer is surely to cut underused daytime services.

Those vulnerable elderly voters that Cllr Sanders so movingly talked about do not appear to value the bus services as much as he thinks, as the daytime buses are often almost empty; presumably they are ones that are tearing around in cars up and down the country lanes that he is so keen to make our children walk along.

Richard Tyler

Tavistock Road

Yelverton