EVERY politician to hold the unlucky transport brief at County Hall ends up worn out and questioning the meaning of life a few years in, and The Source wonders whether John Smith is going the same way.

The veteran Conservative, an amiable and popular fellow in political circles, has now overseen two rounds of hefty cuts to Worcestershire's public transport spending since 2011 and the scars are beginning to show.

The latest minor assassination to his budget includes scrapping both of Worcester's park and rides as part of £1.6 million of cuts.

On Tuesday a special scrutiny meeting was called over it where he sat, red faced with anger, shaking his head for nearly two hours while opposition Labour councillors laid into him.

But The Source wonders whether he's become a cruel victim of circumstance, given the difficult times in local government.

A few years ago Worcester's two park and rides were all the rage and with money aplenty, all the talk at County Hall was around adding another two, three or even four to the city.

The cash is now drying up to such a drastic extent that services previously deemed sacred are being offered to outside takers with park and ride, which will always require a public subsidy, increasingly cast as the elephant in the room.

But if Cllr Smith wants to do something to help, there's a gorgeous cat which hangs around Perdiswell that the staff have dubbed 'Perdie'.

Come September, once the site is empty and the last worker switches off the lights, they are wondering what will happen to this most beautiful of creatures which regards the park and ride’s grassy lawns as home.

Take her home with you, John - look upon her as a memento, a throwback to the days when local government was awash with milk and honey.

After all these cuts are hardly purrfect and you've been licked by the public over it.

"I might send her around to claw his sofas to bits," said one disgruntled park and ride user to yours truly last week.

Meow!

* TALKING about the buses Peter Blake, the council's head of integrated transport, left County Hall this week for a new job in the capital.

Rather than try to achieve the impossible by keeping all of Worcestershire's councillors happy, he's off to Transport for London where the likes of Boris Johnson will be breathing down his neck.

And you thought it was a handful being up here.

* FORMER city council leader Adrian Gregson was in Sainsbury's the other day when a fellow shopper recognised him and started yelling about the "disgraceful" antics of new Mayor Councillor Alan Amos.

The Source believes our first citizen does his shopping in the same venue - I'd keep your head down by the frozen prawn aisle if I were you.