Three Councillors have written to the bosses at Arriva and the Mayor of West Yorkshire to demand action following the announcement key early morning and evening services were being withdrawn after month of cancellations and disruption to services in the South of the city.
Today, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority announced new timetables for some services across Bradford District. The biggest changes were to Arriva services serving southern areas of Bradford. The announcements stated that “some early morning and early evening journeys will be withdrawn, curtailed or retimed”. The impacted services were: 268, 281, 283, 283A and 425.
The Green Party councillors for Tong Ward have raised concerns with bus services along Tong Street and through Oakenshaw after residents have shared stories of disrupted bus services.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Arriva has permanently closed the Wakefield bus depot, which also housed its Yorkshire head offices due to serious structural problems. It has also been reported that the operator had already cut some services due to driver shortages.
Councillor Matt Edwards, who is also the Transport Lead of the Scrutiny Committee of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority said, “Bus users in Bradford have been through enough this year. The last thing they need is disruption by a bus company that seems completely unable to run bus services.
“Arriva needs to get this sorted. There has been a lot of coverage of the impact this has had on services across Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield but it is very clear that passengers in Bradford are also suffering. It seems Bradford bus users are being forgotten about yet again.
“It seems to be one thing after another with Arriva – first the closure of their bus depot then this latest announcement that they are planning significant cuts to services because they don’t have enough bus drivers. Other bus companies have been busy recruiting new drivers, so what exactly have Arriva been doing? We need answers.”
“This is really impacting many people’s day to day lives making it harder to get to work. We know that the communities being impacted the most by this are in areas which have some of the lowest levels of car ownership in West Yorkshire. Many people don’t have any other option than their local bus services.”
Bus users have been complaining of issues with services. On social media, one resident commented, “I use the 425 every day to get to work. Last Thursday the 8.03 and 8.35 was cancelled, I had to get a taxi into Morley to get to work on time. It’s not the most reliable of services. Coming home they are useless the 5.38 bus is never on time and sometimes cancelled. Not great when it’s the only bus that goes from Morley on Tong Street.”
Earlier this year, a survey by Transport Focus revealed that Arriva had the lowest customer satisfaction of all bus operators in West Yorkshire.
Councillor Celia Hickson argued that this situation with Arriva showed it was time to return to public ownership of bus companies.
She said, “Public Transport across Bradford District is just not good enough. We have been waiting for private companies like Arriva to sort their acts out for too long and in my view the only way to make sure we get the public transport network residents deserve is to take it all back into public ownership.
“The experiment with privatisation has been a total failure. These bus companies put their profits before what is best for passengers and it’s time we stopped letting them get away with it. Instead of investing in services and recruiting new drivers, they are paying out dividends to their shareholders.