Stephen hopes you can beat his epic bus trip

A READING man is hoping someone can beat his epic bus ride – he wants to know if someone can travel further than him using just three buses for a cost of just £6.

To celebrate the extension of the bus fare cap, which limits single fares to just £2, Stephen Goss travelled from the town to Royal Leamington Spa.

The 62-mile distance used just three buses.

He first took the X39, which goes from Station Road through Caversham, Cane End and Wallingford to get to Oxford. The journey took an hour and 20 minutes.

After a walk around the city centre, he went to Banbury using a Stagecoach service which also took an hour and 20 minutes, and then on to Royal Leamington Spa, another Stagecoach service, which took an hour and 23 minutes.

Stephen beat his colleagues Jess, who travelled 60 miles from Ipswich to Cromer, and Sarah, who covered 39 miles from Axbridge in Somerset to Bridport Beach in Dorset.

Before the fare cap was introduced, the last leg of Stephen’s journey, a single fare from Banbury to Leamington Spa, used to cost £6.60; more than the cost of Stephen’s entire 62-mile trip.

The epic bus journeys are part of Campaign for Better Transport’s national competition to make more people aware of the £2 bus fare scheme which runs until the end of June.

The journey can have up to three ‘legs’, but no leg can cost more than £2. The winner will receive £150 in National Trust vouchers, enough for a year’s family membership granting you free entry to over 500 fabulous places including Basildon Park in Reading. The competition runs until the end of April.

Stephen says: “Throughout the day I’ve heard first-hand about the day-to-day difference that the £2 bus fare cap is making to people’s lives.

“It’s such a great initiative, but not everyone knows about it.

“Hopefully my journey will raise awareness of the £2 fare and inspire more people to take the bus.” n For more information on the competition, visit www. bettertransport.org.uk

Search on for Easter animals

AN Easter themed event in a local park will raise money to support borough youngsters..

Visitors to Woodley’s Woodford Park will be able to take part in an animal hunt, to raise money for First Days Children’s Charity.

Families wanting to join the trail, can pick up an activity sheet to help them find the animals hidden around the park.

Once discovered, these will reveal a secret Easter-themed word, and children will be able to receive a sweet treat.

The event has been organised by First Days Children’s Charity, Woodley Town Council, The Oakwood Centre and Woodford Leisure Centre.

First Days thanks these organisations for their support.

The charity aims to give choice, restore dignity and empower families who are living with a low income or are experiencing financial hardship.

They offer peer support and one to one coaching to parents, whilst providing everyday essentials for children who need them. n For more information about First Days Children’s Charity, visit: www.firstdays.net

They also distribute school uniforms, new baby essentials, beds and bedding, travel equipment, toiletries, safety items, furniture, toys and books.

The Easter animal hunt can be enjoyed until Sunday, April 16.

Activity sheets can be picked up from Woodford Park Leisure Centre or Woodley Town Council offices in the Oakwood Centre.

A £2 donation is suggested.

The Wokingham-based charity is run by highly trained volunteers and is one of Thames Valley Police (TVP)’s key search resources, helping them handle the thousands of missing persons reports received every year.

Its team of more than 70 search technicians undertake a rota such that they can respond to calls at any time of the day or night.

Volunteer Patrick Kerry said: “We’ve been in temporary accommodation for a while. Our Arborfield base got taken over last year because they’re now building houses there, and we’re now at the Toutley depot on a short-term lease.

“Our work is vital. When the police call us, it’s because they’ve got to the point where they’re deeply concerned about a missing person but have a good idea where they might be.

“Sometimes a suicide note will have been found, or someone with dementia has left home. Police give us a search area, and through computerised mapping or thermal imaging, we work with them to help locate, and hopefully return, these people safely.”

Part of the problem has been finding a location to house the unit’s extensive equipment. Its resources include: an incident control unit van, support vehicles, rescue boats, thermal imaging drones, digital VHF radios and medical equipment.

The group is ideally looking for an alternative location in central Berkshire or Wokingham that can accommodate all their hardware,

HELP NEEDED: BLSAR is in search of a new base,

Berkshire Lowland Search and Rescue training space and a small office.

BLSAR relies entirely on public donations, carrying out and attending fetes and applying for lottery funding. Its expenses include £100 for a tank of fuel for its vehicles and £1,700 for an automated external defibrillator.

Mr Kerry explained: “A large number of us are retired, but some are still working. It’s really the motive that’s driven us. Young and old, male and female.

Clumsy Reading among top 20 towns and cities needing tech repairs

OPPS-A-DAISY! The Ding is among the top 20 towns and cities in the country for being clumsy when it comes to technology.

A survey by Getac ranked the nation for places most likely to break their phones, laptops and tablets.

Reading popped in at 16th.

And it shouldn’t really comes as a surprise, but the worst time for tech repairs is Easter holidays, with demand soaring 24%, while half-term breaks are not far behind. But there is a 6% drop at Christmas.

The most common breakages are screens, dead batteries, duff chargers and faulty USB ports. Unsurprisingly, it is mobile phones that are most affected, followed by tablets, then PCs.

Getac analysed nationwide Google searches for device repairs to identify any trends - and found that there’s consistently been the biggest increase in tech problems at the start of April, based on a decade of search data.

Of the 62 cities analysed, Norwich saw the highest demand for repairs. Mobile phones accounted for the majority of the city’s broken handheld tech (60%), followed by laptops (32%) and tablets (3%). These figures are in line with the national trend, as searches around mobile phone repairs consistently topped those made for laptops or tablets.

Which? consumer data reveals that the average phone repair currently stands at £140, laptop repairs come in at £105 each, and each tablet fix amounts to around £135.

Behind Norwich, the city that saw the most broken devices was Lincoln, with phones accounting for 58% of the damaged tech, followed by Wrexham, Inverness and Bath. Reading was ahead of Newcastle,