A MOTHER to triplets fears she will not make it home in time to put her children to bed if Reading Buses does not change its stance over controversial timetable proposals.

Vicki Thornton, a mum of four, said she is highly dependent on the number 22 bus service from Reading to Caversham to get home in time to take over from childcare.

New timetable proposals will see a 48 minute gap between buses from Reading Station from 5.10pm to 5.58pm.

Miss Thornton said: "We have four children - a five year old in reception and triplets who are two years and nine months old. With so many young children, we are highly dependent on the bus times for our travel and it is very important to us that it lines up well with both train times from London to reliably get us home to take over from childcare on time.

"We split our day so that one of us does 'early' and another does 'late' to try to minimise the time we need child care for; one of us therefore usually catches the 5.30pm train. "However this will now be too late to catch the 5.58pm bus and it will be quicker to walk than wait for the next bus which would get us home too late for bedtime."

The proposals came after the firm originally planned to cut back on its Pink 24 route, which sparked a mountain of opposition from community campaigners.

Reading Buses instead decided it would cut back on the 22 service which runs between Central Reading and Caversham Heights.

Martijn Gilbert, chief executive officer, added: “The half hourly service to Caversham Heights has been maintained for afternoon school times and extends right through to the evening peak.

“Furthermore more red 22 will now provide a much-requested direct link from both Caversham Heights and Caversham Centre to the Royal Berkshire Hospital on Mondays to Saturday.

“We are pleased that we have been able to take many of residents’ suggestions on board and at the same time deliver a number of improvements.

“We now encourage the people of Caversham to get on board their local bus service – they continue to receive the same levels of promotion and ticket offers as the rest of our network.”