“People will soon be locked up in their house all week, it’s just crazy.” Jan Buiteman (77) does not turn around. Together with twelve other voluntary drivers from the Plusbus, he is angry. The bus is due for replacement, but care organization Surplus pulled the plug from the initiative with which vulnerable residents have been driving around for more than 25 years.
Transport to the local care farm, a visit to the Steunpunt or just a message in the store. Many elderly people, the chronically ill or people with disabilities make grateful use of the PlusBus in Halderberge every day.
“We have built up a close bond with most people over the years,” says Kees van Peer (80), who has been driving the bus for 23 years. “We have a chat with them along the way and if necessary we bring the messages inside. Our passengers feel familiar with us.”
Kees felt aside when he was told last month that the plus bus will be stopped from 1 July. The charity foundation Mobility for everyone who took care of the bus for Surplus is bankrupt. The municipality therefore decided to give the subsidy for the Plusbus to a ‘valuable alternative’ in the form of ANWB Automatje. This is a network of local volunteers who transport vulnerable people in their own car.
“How do you want to transport these people in a passenger car without wheelchair lift or other adjustments?”
“The announcement came for us as a thunderbolt in clear sky. We are really pissed off. Not for ourselves, but for the vulnerable people who are dependent on us. Eighty percent of our passengers have difficulty walking, has a walker or a wheelchair. How do you want to transport these people in a passenger car without wheelchair lift or other adjustments? This does not go up with it?
The current Plusbus dates from 2019 and is due for replacement. The volunteers do not understand why Surplus and the municipality now give the initiative ‘so easy’. Kees: “Because of the personal contact, the bus has an important social function. They should therefore make every effort to keep the plus bus up.”
“I also hear that there are places where it doesn’t run for a meter.”
According to the municipality, people who cannot travel with ANWB Automatje have the opportunity to use, for example, a sharing taxi. Other places in the region, including the municipality of Zundert, now have experience with automatic. In Halderberge, the recruitment campaign for volunteers will soon start.
Jan Buiteman has few good expectations: “I also hear that there are places where there is no meter. The threshold for the mostly vulnerable users is too high because they always have to ride with someone else. At least I am not going to register for this, certainly not with my own car.”
Kees van Peer agrees: “We had arranged it well here for years. A new bus costs around one and a half tons. That you have to skimp over it over the back of vulnerable people. I think that is a scandalous way of doing it.”
