This article was published in the print edition of the Argus on Thursday. You can read Newport City Council's response to it here.

THE row over the withdrawal of buses from Newport’s High Street and the potential impact on independent traders rumbles on with no sign of a solution on the horizon.


For those who haven’t been following the story, here’s a quick recap.


After an absence of many years, buses returned to the High Street on a trial basis in 2011.


Long-running gas works meant a suspension of the bus route the following year, before they returned again in 2013.


In the years that have followed, the Kingsway bus station has been demolished, Friars Walk has been built and opened, and there are now two bus stations in the city centre – one behind the new shopping centre and one at the rear entrance to the city’s indoor market.


Newport Transport and others will say – correctly – that the High Street bus stops were only a temporary measure while Friars Walk was being built.


The bus company also says parked cars in the area make it dangerous for its vehicles and that the route is uneconomic.

Market traders and other independents, however, say their businesses have suffered since buses stopped running on High Street.


They have started a campaign calling for the bus route to be reinstated.


I have to say I can see both sides of this particular argument.


Since the mechanical bollards were removed from the bottom of Stow Hill and the top of High Street, there is no doubt the latter area in particular has become quite dangerous.


Mixing cars – some parked illegally and inconsiderately – with buses and pedestrians is a recipe for accidents.


Equally, taking away footfall from the city’s independent traders is a bad idea – particularly when these are the people who have stuck with the city centre through thick and thin unlike some of the high street chains.


I am sure there is a solution to this problem.


It might need the various parties to all get together in the same room to thrash out their differences.


It might even need a few heads being knocked together.


The more I think about it, the more I am convinced there is one organisation that is central to finding a solution.


And that is Newport city council.


Since traders voiced their concerns the council leader Bob Bright has asked for research to be undertaken on the affect on footfall of buses no longer running on High Street. He has also written to Newport Transport to raise traders’ concerns.


Both are admirable courses of action.


But let us not forget the market and the bus company have the same owner – the city council.


The council must have some influence over both, and it certainly has an interest in both being successful.


That’s not finger-pointing. It’s just a fact.


I accept the bus company is an ‘arm’s length’ operation and is run on a day-to-day basis by its managing director and board of directors.


But given that a number of councillors sit on the board, one can safely assume they are in a position to make suggestions as to how the company is run.


At the very least, I’d expect the council to be facilitating a meeting between traders and the bus company (or other bus operators given that NAT has expressed an interest in running a High Street route).


If our website is anything to go by, there does not appear to be much public support for the traders.


Nevertheless, their survival should be important to a city like Newport.
There should be a way of helping them.


If it doesn’t involve buses at the front of the market, then perhaps more work should be done to the rear of the building closer to the bus station.


This row should not be allowed to fester. To do so will simply create unnecessary division and bad feeling.