SO soon after the bus company holding the people of York, including the local authorities, to ransom by announcing that they would only provide services over the holiday period if they were subsidised, they now come out and proclaim that we are to be burdened with what can only be described as another unreasonable increase in fares (Going Up, The Press, January 6).

While First York are within its rights to do this, it does seem that its intentions are to make as much money as possible while the going is good, and having a monopoly over York and its environs does make this easy Councillor Ann Reid, in her reply (How it now works, Readers' Letters, December 29) to my letter of December 23 (Busman's holiday), clearly and precisely sets out how the system works in regard to this aspect of public transport, and for this I commend her.

Hopefully, lessons will have been learned by allowing one operator carte blanche, and when future decisions are made in respect to York's transport requirements the matters regarding operating schedules and fare structures will be taken firmly into account.

It would seem that the only other people to gain from the policy of our bus service operator is the Inland Revenue department, which should benefit from the additional tax derived from increased profits.

J H Roy, Hadrian Avenue, York.