It has to be said. Just as the Traffic Reduction Act is in tatters, so too is Ealing Council's dubious so-called 'consultation' process.

Ealing Council has just given the go-ahead to certain bus route 'improvements' after consulting the public and inviting comments.

Why does the council continue this falsity of a consultation process if it has no intention whatsoever of listening to the public and even less intention of acting on those comments?

Why does the council waste our time asking us to contribute comments when it has no intention of taking any notice?

After all the consultations, the original proposals remain intact. Questions remain unanswered.

How many extra buses will be on these routes?

Will people still have to pay upon boarding their bus?

This is a most time-consuming practice and the prime reason why bus trips take so long.

Passengers have to wait for every passenger after them to pay. And this happens at every single bus stop.

The council boasts of 'consulting' 300,000 people living along the Uxbridge Road.

Yet who exactly has received this rare document? How many local people from Northfields, South Ealing, Pitshanger, Cuckoo Hill and Boston Manor, who have to drive along Uxbridge Road during their journeys, have been consulted?

How many people whose bus routes will also be affected have had the chance of commenting?

Not that commenting will sway this dictatorial council from its lemming-like run up to the next local election a mere few months away.

What are these consultations for? They don't mean a thing except to placate the conscience of the council.

Joe Page

Leyborne Avenue

Ealing