I HAVE been reading with varying degrees of dismay recent articles in the Evening News regarding comments by county councillors about declining bus service usage and withdrawal of services with yet more under threat.

If experience in the Evesham/Pershore area is anything to go by, then the simple answer lies in far better publicity and promotion by the county council of existing and new services.

Updating service information in bus shelters is important (and, even then, all too often happens after the event) but, at the end of the day, it is merely preaching to the converted.

It is now around five years since the county council organised any door-to-door leaflet drop in this area showing the full range of services, particularly the improvements on the Worcester-Pershore-Evesham route.

The last Evesham-Pershore area bus guide appeared in July 2002. It was out of date within a few weeks, and, despite countless requests and cajoling and vague promises regarding a new guide "in time for the summer period" it is now the end of September and no new guide has been produced.

This is frustrating particularly for the smaller operators who rely on the county council to help publicise their services, and desperate for the users, who then lose their services due to the almost total lack of publicity.

It has also meant that users have been turning up at bus stops unaware that their services have been withdrawn - witness the recent, sudden and unexplained loss of the 0855 bus from Pershore to Worcester.

We have an hourly service between Worcester-Pershore-Evesham during the day and services until 2300, as well as an hourly service from Pershore to Worcester via Defford and Eckington, but the majority of local people could be forgiven for being none the wiser.

JULIAN PALFREY, Pershore.