Jane Mace's letter to Stroud News about local buses is spot on: 'Use them or Lose Them'. As a non-driver, while living in Frampton on Severn, I depended on a bus that ran from there to Gloucester at 1.30 pm. Then the service was cut, because there were never more than three people on board. At one time, before nearly every family had a car, a bus like this would have been full.

It shocks me to see all the lines of cars on our roads going by with only one person in them. No wonder our children and elderly are coughing their lungs out, and people's sleep is disturbed late into the night by the continuous loud hum of traffic. And as car use drives the axing of bus services, those without access to personal transport are left behind.

Can our public transport providers not make buses and trains so attractive and affordable that people actually prefer to leave the car at home?

Monica Jones

Stonehouse