Salisbury Reds reduce services as company struggles with staff absences due to Covid-19
The bus company stress the measures are temporary
Last updated 13th Jan 2022
Bus operator Salisbury Reds has announced temporary changes to its services from Sunday 16th January
The company says its experiencing a higher than normal number of absences due to Covid-19.
Buses will continue to run all routes, although some services will be less frequent to ensure the operator can allocate enough drivers to run all scheduled journeys.
Park and ride services will also change - operating every 30 minutes - and customers are being advised to allow extra time for their journeys.
Passengers are urged to check the Salisbury Reds website.
Salisbury Reds general manager, Alex Chutter said;
“In recent days, the number of colleagues testing positive for covid-19 has increased. With that in mind, we are making these changes from next week. These emergency measures are designed to ensure that all key workers can rely on us to take them where they need to go, whilst ensuring pupils who use our home-to-school services can continue to travel as normal.
“The measures will ensure there are no big gaps in the services we provide, and we will review the situation weekly, with a view of reverting back to our full network and frequencies as soon as circumstances allow us to. We will monitor the impact of Omicron but, all being well, fewer colleagues will need to isolate and we can restore our full levels of service for our customers.”
The changes, designed to improve reliability, are supported by Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways & Transport Mark McClelland who said:
“The bus industry is going through a very difficult period currently and I know that these frequency changes have not been taken lightly by Salisbury Reds.
“I am sure that this will be a short-term measure and we hope to work in partnership with Salisbury Reds, through the recently adopted Bus Service Improvement Plan in the not too distant future.”