RECENTLY the management team for the number four ftr bus service (known locally as the purple worm) which runs between the University of York and Acomb Village Green, has surpassed itself.

For “at frequent intervals” on the timetable, instead, experience the new 25 to 30-minute waiting time on the Acomb side of the route. Bemused, I studied the new timetable.

Behold! A new half-hourly “shuttle service” ironically entitled “4U” now runs only between the railway station and York University. 4U? I think not. Just another example of crass mismanagement of the vital number four bus link, which gives countless families, workers and pensioners in the Acomb area their only public transport into the city.

Can someone please dump that whiz-kid timetabler at an Acomb bus stop, preferably when a gale is blowing and it’s raining “cats and dogs” – “4U”, that’ll be the day.

Dreaming of the old pre-purple buses which ran at seven-minute intervals.

Now, those were the days.

Patricia Palaeologina
Windsor Garth, York.