I WRITE in regard to the ongoing discussion on your Letters page in relation to First Manchester's decision, at the beginning of September, to withdraw the 560 bus service, and the replacement shared taxi service (APT) funded by Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority.

Keith Howcroft, director of planning and passenger services for GMPTE, responded to an article by your reporter Saiqa Chaudhari, and a letter from a Mrs F. Hesten, and explained in very simple terms the role of GMPTE and the Authority, of which I am vice-chairman. I was, therefore, dismayed to see subsequent correspondence from Mrs Hesten that leads me to believe that she has completely misunderstood Mr Howcroft's reply. In turn, I believe her reply has misled your readers further.

Mrs Hesten states: "We who have been using the service for years know that the words 'this is a subsidised service' were printed on the front of the 560 timetable". Some background research on the history of the service may explain this seeming contradiction.

A few years ago the previous commercial operator of the 560, Timeline Travel, linked the service at Bolton with a service subsidised by GMPTE between Bolton and Mosley Common. I can only imagine that this is where Mrs Hesten's confusion has arisen.

However, having checked the old timetable for the 560, I can tell your readers that the only thing it said on it is: "Bus 560 is run by First Manchester".

So, may I reiterate the crux of the matter -- which I thought was explained perfectly clearly by Mr Howcroft -- that the 560 was a bus service provided on a commercial basis by First Manchester, and their decision to withdraw it was a commercial decision entirely within their rights. To put it in even simpler terms, the 560 service was not, at any time, subsidised by GMPTE, who bear no responsibility for First Manchester's decision to stop running the service. This is an indisputable fact and Mrs Hesten's "wonderings" on subsidies being withdrawn and the reasons for this are a fiction of her own making.

From her repeated references to "money" and "subsidies", I get the distinct impression that Mrs Hesten feels that GMPTE and the Authority are in some way trying to obscure the issue of funding.

Let me state once again -- as clearly and plainly as Mr Howcroft did -- that it is GMPTE's role to monitor the public transport network to ensure that all areas of the county are adequately provided for within the resources available to us. In this case, as Mr Howcroft stated: "Passenger usage of the 560 from Turton Road to Bolton was not high enough to permit GMPTE to spend a considerable amount of council taxpayers' money on subsidising a replacement service for this section of the route".

Instead of paying a bus company to run a largely empty bus service along Turton Road every hour, we have made provision for a demand-responsive shared taxi service, which only operates when required. The taxi service is available within (at most) 30 minutes of the time requested, any time between 9.30am and 11pm.

Mrs Hesten also mentioned in her letter that she was still awaiting delivery of "the new route map" for the replacement APT shared taxi service. Unfortunately, due to the short notice, GMPTE was unable to distribute a full colour leaflet by the time the service commenced. However, a flyer was delivered to every household in the Turton Road and Woodstock Drive areas before the APT service started. This contained all the information local residents needed to know about the scheme. In turn, a full colour leaflet was delivered by September 19.

I would like to conclude by pointing out that the Authority's control over bus services was taken away by the Tories in 1986 when they deregulated the industry. This has directly led to the worsening of services, and a situation whereby private companies can withdraw services such as the 560 for purely commercial reasons.

The Tory councillors who appear to be acting on Mrs Hesten's behalf are members of the party whose 18-year reign of mismanagement has led to so many problems for public transport users and, worse still, are the same councillors who presumably supported their Government amid the wreckage of public transport.

Years of under-funding by the previous Tory Government has decimated the public transport system in the whole of the UK. Mrs Hesten refers to the Government's ten-year transport plan -- only now with the current Labour Government are we beginning to see proper investment in the infrastructure needed to improve and sustain reliable public transport.

As for Councillor Walsh, perhaps he could explain to Mrs Hesten why he has been a consistent and avid supporter of deregulation and why he was disowned by his own Conservative Group leader on the Authority in churlishly refusing to welcome the expansion of Metrolink in Greater Manchester. He went on to compound his behaviour by being the one member of the Authority -- regardless of party -- who refused to welcome the Government's investment plans.

COUNCILLOR GUY HARKIN,

vice-chairman,

Bolton spokesman, GMPTE.