SIR - Recently, a letter from Jenny Barnes was highly critical of the city bus service.

I remember going for a last ride on a Worcester tramcar. The fare was a fraction of a present day penny. A councillor, Richard Fairbairn, had made an agreement with the Birmingham and Midland Red Motor Omnibus Company to run public transport in Worcester. Mr Fairbairn was also well known for having had a brief tenure as Liberal MP for the city. Now he is remembered only by golden oldies such as myself. The "forward drive" buses duly appeared on the streets the next day. I regarded them as poor substitutes for my beloved tramcars.

I mention all this because I was then nine years old. I am now 87. A successor company of that which concluded the agreement with Councillor Fairbairn all those years ago still runs Worcester's local transport service. This so-called service has been in decline ever since the end of the Second World War.

Surely the time has come for a radical new approach to a service motivated by welfare not profit? The council should own its own fleet of vehicles. Alas, as in 1928, the Tory majority on Worcester's council would say that that would cost too much. In the Faithful City some things never change.

D E MARGRETT,

Worcester.