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Routemaster buses in London to be refitted with windows that open
Boris Johnson chided by assembly members for ordering fleet of new vehicles with design that left passengers suffering temperatures of 30C and above
This isn't half the problem with them. They're having to refit them so that they don't have the rear platform on them, which was included just because Routemasters used to have them.
This is all on top of a cost per bus of something like £50k over and above a better performing off the peg one. And they probably will be scrapped when their finished in London- regular London buses are "cascaded" to routes outside London, with less intensive routes, and go on to do years more service.
Yeah, Stagecoach and First use the clapped out old nags down here - they start off OK, but first time in the workshop, and this is very apparent in the smaller "hopper" buses, the civilised exhaust silencer is replaced by a bog-standard bloorter that echoes around the valley as it splorts and grumbles up and down our steep roads. And then they charge us a bloody fortune for the privilege - far more than the equivalent fares in London, or indeed Plymouth or Exeter where the smaller buses come from - having already seen a handsome return from the ten or more years the buses have already done.
And my word, don't the guys with the tow-trucks big enough to rescue yet another broken-down double-decker do well out of all this,
And all of this funded by public subsidy. Bastids.
Oh, and is it still the case that under-sixteens have free travel in London? Only I've just bought a bus pass to get Sprog No.1 to her new secondary school.
Hobiejoe wrote:
Yeah, Stagecoach and First use the clapped out old nags down here - they start off OK, but first time in the workshop, and this is very apparent in the smaller "hopper" buses, the civilised exhaust silencer is replaced by a bog-standard bloorter that echoes around the valley as it splorts and grumbles up and down our steep roads. And then they charge us a bloody fortune for the privilege - far more than the equivalent fares in London, or indeed Plymouth or Exeter where the smaller buses come from - having already seen a handsome return from the ten or more years the buses have already done.
And my word, don't the guys with the tow-trucks big enough to rescue yet another broken-down double-decker do well out of all this,
And all of this funded by public subsidy. Bastids.
We pay £1.50 for a bus journey, even it's only a couple of stops. I paid £1 the other day in Oxford to go a decent distance. So we're not cheap since Johnson froze his share of council tax and wasted fortunes.
Even Johnson can't take the piss too much though, so we're not too badly off, whatever money he wastes. Other places vary- Cheltenham/Gloucester got some brand new buses last year. It's what they're prepared to pay, I guess.
Last edited by Tubby Isaacs on Wed 23 Sep, 2015 1:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
People throw up lots of reasons to save UIFSM, mostly anecdotal, few if any stand up to scrutiny, but they all are dwarfed by the elephant in the room, there is no evidence UIFSM on its own makes a difference to children’s education.
I cant stress this enough, there is no evidence UIFSM on its own makes a difference to children’s education or their health.
This inevitably puts the DFE in an awkward position, as there are clear benefits for many other competing alternatives. Whilst only around 400,000 children are benifiting from the uifsm policy.
So in simple terms people are fighting for a scheme that actually takes money from schools, that will cost more and has no evidence of any benefit or that it offers value for money.
I would say in any cost benefit analysis, you are on to a loser!
The Tories really shouldn't have put this in the manifesto...no-one would have noticed if it wasn't there so they deserve a good kicking when people realise that they're breaking a manifesto promise.
If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.
Yep. Problem comes with them not thinking they'd win, and throwing the kitchen sink at it. No need to promise this at all, and it shouldn't be a priority- it's SNP-type stuff, eyecatching, and makes people feel good. While schools the poor go to struggle.
Hobiejoe wrote:Oh, and is it still the case that under-sixteens have free travel in London? Only I've just bought a bus pass to get Sprog No.1 to her new secondary school.
£180.
Per term.
*muttergrumble*
They do indeed get it free and it's good, but it's more of a necessity in London than most places. I used to cycle everywhere when I was that age, but I wouldn't have been allowed to in London.
But it is a good deal for them.
Last edited by Tubby Isaacs on Wed 23 Sep, 2015 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Tubby Isaacs wrote:Yep. Problem comes with them not thinking they'd win, and throwing the kitchen sink at it. No need to promise this at all, and it shouldn't be a priority- it's SNP-type stuff, eyecatching, and makes people feel good. While schools the poor go to struggle.
I was in school today and told that in our year 1 we have one FSM pupil signed up so we can claim pupil premium.
It's so far out of line with other years that has to be the effect of UFSM - parents don't have to sign up since their child will get a free meal anyway.
Well done Nick...another winner...
If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.
Hobiejoe wrote:Oh, and is it still the case that under-sixteens have free travel in London? Only I've just bought a bus pass to get Sprog No.1 to her new secondary school.
£180.
Per term.
*muttergrumble*
They do indeed get it free and it's good, but it's more of a necessity in London than most places. I used to cycle everywhere when I was that age, but I wouldn't have been allowed to in London.
She's a keen cyclist, but if we don't want to use the school that E-Act had to abandon a year or so ago after trashing it, it's a very hilly thirteen miles of A road to the next school. Which was one of the very first comps ('69) and had close links to the Dartington organisation beloved by Lord Young, father of that streak of piss.
And my school, as well.
*edit* And a school I'm proud of, in case you got the wrong idea - it's just a long way away. Damn fine arts and music - I appeared in a couple of school plays before hormones rendered me crippled with self-conciousness. Gay's The Beggers Opera, Miller's The Crucible and Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle. And when I say 'appeared' I really mean 'appeared briefly'.
Last edited by Hobiejoe on Wed 23 Sep, 2015 2:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
A very belated Happy Birthday for yesterday to Anatoly
@ChrisDean. Thanks.
Actually watched the telly tonight for an hour or so.I was never really a great watcher,unless specific reason or with company.May watch the rugby tomorrow,which I didn't even know had started before I read the bollox about Corbyn not attending.
