Darlington councillors call for improvements to town's bus services
The bus operator Arriva has been called "Abysmal" by councillors as they call for improvements
Councillors in Darlington are demanding improvements from bus operator Arriva - after branding the services in the town abysmal.
The company has faced calls to fix their services for over a year, from residents who've reported missing school, work and even hospital appointments because of unreliable services, and wait times of more than an hour.
Although more drivers were recently recruited people continue to report their struggles with services.
In the latest criticism of Arriva, Councillor Jan Cossins said the town’s poor bus services are still impacting residents and questioned whether the operator could be replaced.
“I have a resident who needs to go to the doctors from Branksome, she is unable to walk there, but what she has to do is to leave her house an hour early to ensure she can get there in time – this is a few minutes bus journey, and there has been a couple of times she has missed her appointment,” cllr Cossins said.
Other residents have told of waiting over an hour for the number two service – Red Hall to Branksome – throughout the day.
Residents in sheltered accommodation have become isolated in their homes as they feel they cannot rely on local services. Meanwhile, another resident told of ringing the ‘stop’ bell three times before eventually being let off the bus.
The Labour councillor for Cockerton added: “People have and are losing their jobs because of constantly being late for work. This is not good enough, I do think that we may need to look for another operator, or use some of the TVCA transport funding and acquire our own fleet of buses.
“These people are being marginalised.”
Cllr Andy Keir, cabinet member for local services, said the concerns have been relayed to Arriva bosses but admitted recent performances have been abysmal. “It’s something we’re working hard on and trying to move forward, there’s a lot of pressure we’re putting on Arriva,” he added.
Arriva apologised to residents for the ongoing issues and said improvements are being made, including a new timetable for the number two service which will increase services.
A spokesperson said:
“We are well aware of the service delivery related challenges which have been impacting our customers in recent months. For this, we apologise and would like to reassure our customers of our commitment to resolving these issues.
“As well as introducing 14 new buses onto our network, we continue to heavily focus on driver recruitment (which we are seeing real benefit from and continually welcoming new drivers into our workforce) and we’re continually working on bus improvement plans.
“As an example, our timetable for the number two service will change on April 2, introducing increased frequency for our customers.”