Opinion: Good try but mayor’s challenge was a bit too easy

Cambridgeshire’s Mayor Nik Johnson is determined to make public transport better for everyone across the county.

Very laudable, and in fact much needed, and to that end he undertook a six district challenge on Monday, which saw him using public transport to make his way around the county’s six local authority areas in 24 hours.

Again great idea, and very laundable.

The aim was to show progress made on delivering better public transport and things like cycling routes, and to identify challenges that remain in Cambridgeshire.

Sadly I can’t help but laugh at the fact he chose to start his day in Wisbech travelling from Fenland to Peterborough by bus.

After all that is in fact one of the few Fenland routes that is pretty well served by buses – the First Excel service in particular – and it runs every 30 minutes on weekdays and hourly at weekends.

I would have been more impressed if he tried to get a bus from one of our many villages, where buses are not quite so frequent. In fact it is just the opposite – he most certainly would have seen challenges then.

Travelling the 22.7 miles from Wisbech to Peterborough took him just 47 minutes – and if he had chosen to he could have been in the city in time to start work at 9am.

However, it would not have been quite so smooth sailing if he had chosen to start from, let’s say, Benwick.

At just 14.9 miles from Peterborough, you would imagine that it would take less time to get there from the village.

But you would be wrong, very wrong, it would in fact have taken him – if he had chosen to leave on the first bus at 9.30am – two hours and three minutes to complete the journey.

Yes , you read that right, two hours and three minutes to cover 14.9 miles. Who has that sort of time to waste? Is it any wonder that people living here in rural Fenland are so reliant on their cars.

And whilst the mayor and for that matter the county council try to push public transport with splendid offers such as £2 fares etc it is not going to work in places like Fenland, simply because public transport, as it is at the moment, is impractical.

So until it is made more accessible, practical and cheaper those that can, will continue to stick firmly behind the wheel of their cars, and no amount of publicity stunts by politicians is going to change that any time soon...

I don’t watch day time tele – well I’m at work when it’s on – but I did watch the Holly Willoughby from This Morning’s monologue on the departure of her ex-best friend Phillip Schofield – I tuned in on Youtube after seeing all the comments about it on social media.

And well, what can I say, it was bizarre to say the least. Starting with asking viewers “are you Ok” was quite frankly weird. Of course we’re OK.

What alternative universe do these so-called TV stars live in? Did Holly truly believe the recent events involving Phillip Schofield has had an impact on viewers in anyway that required her to ask such a ridiculous question.

How self-absorbed is she? I accept it has obviously impacted and upset her, but as for the rest of us I would hazard a guess that we really don’t give a monkeys and the only impact it has had is the fact we have been bombarded by one ‘news’ story after another on the unsavory drama.

I would suggest Holly that most people have been too busy getting on with their lives, trying to make ends meet in the face of the continuing onslaught of price rises, interest rate hikes and lack of proper pay rises for the past decade or so, to have been impacted by one man and his love affair and his so-called lies (or whatever it was).

So Holly, as a presenter of a television programme that prides itself on putting real people and their concerns at its heart, I would suggest it’s time to get real, get over yourself and focus on the topics that actually matter to your viewers…

And finally a huge shout out to the large numbers of volunteers in our towns and villages who have in recent weeks been busy making our streets look pretty with hanging baskets and lovely flower beds – a blooming great effort and we salute you for your time and efforts, it really is appreciated.

And for those volunteers who are doing it ready for the annual in Bloom competition I wish you luck, it would be great to see our local entries flourish again this year (sorry pun intended)...