Hucknall woman left waiting at a stop for two hours pleads for better bus service in town

Cathy Craig, 67, says the buses are vital for her but that services in Hucknall have been steadily getting worse and worse.

Mrs Craig said she was once left waiting two hours for a bus just to get from her home to the town centre.

She believes Hucknall services are being forgotten by bosses at trentbarton, which runs the buses in the town, claiming passengers see money spent on new buses on other routes around the East Midlands while Hucknall passengers are being left to cope with older, increasingly unreliable vehicles.

She said: "Buses keep having problems and keep having to be taken out of service.

"They also can't get enough drivers - which is down to Brexit I believe.

"As a result, the Hucknall buses are terrible and have become completely unreliable.

"I can't drive, I absolutely depend on the buses and if they are not turning up, then I have to use taxis and they are expensive and I'm a pensioner, I haven't got money to waste.

"And while I can swear and curse and say I'll have to go for a coffee tomorrow, it's the workers I feel sorry for because if the buses aren't there, how are they going to get to work?”

Cathy says that one afternoon, when planning a trip to the cinema, she waited for a bus to the town’s main tram stop but after a two-hour wait none came.

She said: "It could have been the bus overheated because it was the heatwave at the time, but it just showed how unreliable the buses had become and still are.

"I ended up having to share a taxi with a gentleman to get home.

"It's something that is very important that there is a problem with the buses and it needs to be addressed.

"I think Hucknall and the Hucknall routes are being forgotten about.

"I had to email trentbarton to ask them what they were going to about it, everybody knows about it but nobody's doing anything about it.

"I think people tend to moan and whinge to each other but not to the powers that be.

"I try not to moan and whinge, I try to be very rational and ordered in what I say to them and that email is being passed to the powers that be.

"I said to them, it needs be discussed over a table with the bosses because something needs to be done."By spending money on new buses, they would actually be investing in buses because a new bus will last 15-to-20 years and I'm hoping they do something like replace the old diesel buses with electric ones.”

A trentbarton spokesperson said: “We apologise to any customer in Hucknall who

has experienced a service delay recently.

“We have been coping with some driver shortages in Hucknall.

"As everyone will be aware, there is an industry-wide shortfall in qualified drivers which is also affecting the haulage sector.

"We are actively recruiting and training new drivers.

“We remain committed to serving the people of Hucknall and as recently as 2019 introduced an extra bus and two new connect routes, C1 and C2, to serve the town’s new housing developments.

“After major investments in recent years we have one of the youngest bus fleets in

the country.

"The pandemic may have constrained our ability to currently invest more but we remain committed to resume refreshing our fleet as soon as we can.”