A vulnerable 79-year-old woman spent the night in a public toilet after her bus failed to show up.

Councillor Neil Shailer (Labour) from Cambridgeshire County Council, said he had been told about the incident from another councillor, who said the woman had been waiting for a bus to travel from Royston to Harston.

He shared the story at a meeting of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s transport and infrastructure committee on Wednesday, November 19. The meeting was to discuss the draft bus strategy to improve public transport across the area.

Cllr Shailer said he wanted to highlight that the plans were also about "actual people".

He said: "This is an anecdote that we had from one of the county councillors.

"I had a call from one of my parish councillors today, a 79-year-old vulnerable lady spent between 5pm and 7.30pm waiting for a bus at Royston to take her back to Harston.

"The bus never turned up, she called the police asking for help, but they said there was nothing they could do. She ended up spending the night in a public toilet.

"These are about actual people, actual lives, even though we are looking at this from more of an overall strategy, I think we should not lose sight of the fact that the beneficiaries of people on buses are not only those people on the buses, but its provision of infrastructure and we want to create an environment where our people can thrive.

"In order to get them to work we need something ambitious, we need a joined up system."

The draft vision for the future bus strategy says it wants to create a "comprehensive network of bus services across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough that people find convenient, easy to use, reliable and good value for money, that is inclusive and offers a viable alternative to the car".

Councillor Sam Wakeford (Labour), from Huntingdonshire District Council, said he was supportive of progressing the bus strategy saying it was "really important to residents".

He also said that a convenient network would not just be existing routes, but routes that took people to where they needed to go.

He said that for him a comprehensive service would include all of the services that had been running before the Stagecoach cuts announcement, recognising the interim services arranged by the Combined Authority.

Councillor Marco Cereste (Conservative), from Peterborough City Council, said he was not a bus user as he did not find them to be convenient, compared to trains and his car.

He said: “One of the objectives should be to get people like me onto buses, because the benefit is not just that there are then more buses available, which will make it better for everybody, but also helping the climate and the planet, getting my big car off the road.”

Multiple councillors raised the need for the bus network to be integrated with other services in the area.

A final version of the draft strategy is expected to be presented to the Combined Authority Board later this month where they will be asked to approve a six week consultation on the plans.

​