Newspaper's FreeCityBus axe claims 'ridiculous'
Trial only a quarter complete.Suggestions in the Yorkshire Evening Post that a decision about the future of Leeds FreeCityBus service, introduced on a six-month trial at the end of January, has already been made, are 'ridiculous'.
"Because when asked to do so by the Yorkshire Evening Post Metro refused to prejudge the outcome of the six-month trial, when it is barely a quarter complete the paper ran a story with the alarming headline 'Free shuttle bus faces axe this summer'," said a Metro spokesman.
"The Yorkshire Evening Post would, quite rightly, be among the first to condemn Metro if it were to announce that we would be holding a six-month trial of a project, as is the case with FreeCityBus, and then make a decision on the project's future with just a quarter of the trial complete," he continued.
In its story the Yorkshire Evening Post claimed it had 'learned' that an agreement on the future funding of the service has still to be reached. This information came from a publicly-available report to Metro's Bus Working Group, which took place on 16 February, just two weeks after the service's launch.
Metro told the Yorkshire Evening Post's reporter, while response to the FreeCityBus has, to date, been overwhelmingly positive, a decision on its future will be made, as it should be, at the end of the trial.
Thats how i know that it is on a trial only basis