LETTER: Public transport rules mean trip is still not possible

Following the recent relaxing of restrictions on UK staycations, I am pleased that, as from early July, hotels, motor caravan sites and camping sites will be able to reopen for the remainder of the summer.

However, there has been no relaxation of the restrictions on public transport. I can not drive and do not own a car. With the restrictions on using public transport currently in place, i.e. for essential travel only, how can I possibly get to my usual camping and caravan site in Dorset ? It’s all very well removing the restrictions on hotels and camping sites etc, but there must be hundreds of thousands of people stuck inside inner city and urban areas that do not have their own transport and can’t get to such places. Our lives are compressed into a relatively short area with travel on public transport restricted to essential travel only.

I want to go on holiday in the UK to get a chance to see my extended family in Dorset and Hampshire but it’s impossible for me to get there. Government needs to recognise this and reduce public transport restrictions. A friend of mine said, “...just wing it, try and blag your way to Dorset on a train or coach”. However, I doubt very much that a 6 feet 2 inch tall adult male with a 55 litre backpack and all the trimmings would get very far before getting stopped by police and handed a hefty fine, or at the lower end of the scale simply asked to return home, thus losing out financially for the train/coach fare already paid.

I just wish the responsible government department for advising on such matters would use a bit of common sense and realise that it’s nice to relax the restrictions on taking holidays but without the means to get to the destination there are hundreds of thousands of us to whom it may as well be inapplicable. I realise common sense and politician in the same sentence is a bit of an oxymoron, but I just hope a light bulb suddenly illuminates over someone’s head and the issue is resolved soonest. In the meantime, to many of us, nothing has changed.

Mark Whitehouse, Brierley Hill

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