MEMBERS of a Frome charity have been hugely affected by cuts to one of the services it uses regularly to travel to and from the town.
So much so the members of the OpenStorytellers group, which empowers people with learning difficulties to express themselves through stories and prose, has written a letter to the regional manager of the First Group in the South West, asking them to re-instate the afternoon bus which enables them to travel to the group meeting in Wells on a Monday afternoon.
In the letter the group state: "We understand you have cut the bus services between Frome and Shepton Mallet, cutting the number of buses available to us. "People now can't get to the places they want to go, at a time to suit them.
"We use buses regularly, and once a week we take the 161 bus from Wells to Frome to go to work with Openstorytellers. Our usual bus home has been cut in he afternoon, which means we will have to either cut our day short to go on an earlier bus at 2.24pm, or have a very long day by getting the bus at 5.24pm.
"None of us are able to drive cars. We rely on buses to get us where we want to go.
"The bus at 5.24pm is too late for us because we will get home too late, and in the winter it will be dark, cold, wet and could be unsafe for us.
"If we get the earlier bus at 2.24pm, this means that our work and training is cut short and we can't achieve all the things we want to do.
"There is no other bus service to replace the 3.24pm. We don't want to shorten our day.
"The only thing we can do is to use the Somerset County Council Volunteer driver service, which Openstorytellers will have to pay for.
"This will cost our small charity a lot of money, which should be spent on other things."
The group said the bus cuts were no the only issue they were concerned about.
An Openstorytellers spokeswoman said: "As well as the problem with the buses being cut, there is also a problem with letting people know about the changes, and no notice for the people who use them.
"We found out by chance with only a couple of days' notice.
"We urge First Bus to please bring back an afternoon bus and please talk to the people who use the services."
A First Bus spokeswoman confirmed the company had received the letter.
She said: "We can confirm that we have received the letter from the OpenStoryTellers.
"We will respond to this in due course, having taken on board their request and also considered whether or not there is anything we can do to assist them."
