Inside Britain's broken bus system ruining lives - lost jobs and people isolated
Britain’s bus network is broken and ruining people’s lives, passengers have told the Mirror. One elderly couple were forced to put their house on the market because service cuts have left them struggling to see their autistic daughter.
Heartbroken Joy Lush, 75, and husband David, 85, said their direct bus to see daughter Dawn, 40, has been axed. Joy, of Liphook, Hants, said: “The buses are so awful now. We don’t drive and it’s very upsetting because we are not able to see our daughter as often as we like to and she’s the love of our lives.” Others told us how vanishing buses have been leaving passengers missing appointments and being sent to the back of the queue for them. And one young woman told how she had been reduced to tears of frustration after being left scared and alone in the dark when buses failed to turn up.
Bus routes are getting axed across the UK (Alamy Stock Photo)The Mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard, said people in his region are losing their jobs. He added: “We just can’t get people to work.” Bus services are facing a nationwide crisis with the number of miles covered plummeting by almost a quarter under Tory rule. Services travelled 300 million fewer miles in 2022/23 than in 2010, a huge drop of 22%. Separate data for England last year also revealed about half of local bus routes had been axed since 2010, with 2,160 lost in a single year. The cuts have left passengers out in the cold.
Joy explained: “My daughter is practically non verbal but she is happy when she sees us. Two years ago, the buses were hourly direct from Liphook to Alton. Now there’s only one direct at 7am for the college children and the next one is 9am and that’s it for the day. They are unreliable too. One day they didn’t turn up at all. [Dawn has] been in this home since February and we love her to bits but it is harder to see her now. Then the last bus is 4.40 home. If we miss that then we have to get a taxi, which costs £25 and that’s for a ten-minute journey.”
Joy Lush, 75 and husband David Lush, 85, from Liphook in Hampshire have been left unable to visit their non-verbal autistic daughter (Jonathan Buckmaster)
Demaine Boocock has trouble with the buses on her daily commute to work (Reach Commissioned)A spokesman from Stagecoach, which runs the service, said: “Journey times were very lengthy on these services and punctuality was challenging due to the unpredictability of our road network for such a long journey. The service also carried very few passengers from end to end.”
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He added a Saturday service via Liphook had been reinstated had been reinstated for the first time in several years. Demaine Boocock, 29, who works for the University of Sheffield told how the buses are “frustrating, depressing and isolating”. The 86 bus she needs to take herself to work in the city centre have been slashed from every half an hour to every two hours in the evening and on Sunday.
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“You can wait for 45 minutes and then two buses turn up at the same time. It’s really frustrating,” she said. “I’ve been in tears because of the buses and I know I’m not the only one. It’s cut off a lot of people’s social lives. I have to consider If I can go somewhere and have to think about safety. There are fewer people taking the buses now because they are so bad so I can sometimes not feel safe. So I have to think, ‘Am I going to be waiting alone at a bus stop in the freezing cold and in the dark?’” Demaine says she is learning to drive, adding: “You feel like you are stuck in your house and missing out on life.”
Warehouse supervisor Mick Dawson, 66, told how his wife Judith, 62, missed a vital check-up because of the buses. Mick, of Beighton in Sheffield, said: “My wife was going for a mammogram and went for the early bus but it never turned up. She rang the depot and they said they didn’t have a driver. It’s terrible. The bus service is atrocious. It’s serious because it does ruin lives. People aren’t getting to work on time and losing their jobs. Everyone feels isolated. What got me was seeing an old lady looking absolutely freezing just before Christmas. She was 86 years old and going to the doctor’s surgery. She said her bus hadn’t turned up. In this day and age people shouldn’t be treated like that. I blame the Tories for all the cutbacks. [The system is] definitely broken.”
Wendy May says her husband missed an important appointment due to the buses (PHILIP COBURN)Wendy May, 81, from Brentwood, Essex, said her neighbours are being sent to the bottom of waiting lists because they are missing appointments. “My husband missed the number 9 because it had gone through early so had to pay £17.50 to get a taxi for his blood tests. It’s awful. You just can’t do this to people. When you get to your hospital appointment late, they are not interested in the buses, you just go to the back of the list and have to wait for another appointment. It is so stressful and not good for your health at all. It’s freezing cold and sometimes the buses just don’t turn up.”
Her local councillor David Kendall, the chair of Brentwood bus and rail users association, said a lot of the problems are caused by a shortage of bus drivers who had been snapped up by haulage firms on better pay. Retired Clive Turner, 71, has been fighting for five years for buses to the “isolated” Somerset villages near him. He said: “There are 1,500 people from Camerton, Neadgate and Tunley who have no buses to Bath or Bristol at all. A lot of people depend on those buses for livelihoods, kids’ education, all sorts of things and it is already having a detrimental effect. Until the Government recognises that public transport is as important as education and defence it’s not going to change.”
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “The Government has invested over £3.5billion since 2020 to protect, support and improve local bus services. With redirected funding from HS2, we have already extended the £2 single bus fare cap until the end of 2024 and allocated the first £150m tranche of £1bn in new funding dedicated to improving bus services across the North and the Midlands as part of our Network North plan.”
Mayor says bus cuts are creating chaos
Mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard, in one of the worst hit areas for bus cuts said: “The public transport system in this country is broken.”
“We are struggling. It’s a problem that is ruining lives and creating chaos in the communities that we serve.
“In the last ten years we have seen a 40 per cent decline in bus mileage and that’s a real problem.”
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He said the South Yorkshire region had been turned down by the Government for funds that would help ease their public transport woes.
Now they are heading in the same direction as Manchester, who have brought their buses back under local authority control.
South Yorkshire has started the same Bus Franchising process, which involves a public consultation.
Greater Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham launched the Bee Network last year.
“We have the world’s first advanced manufacturing centre on Orgreave which is held back by poor public transport. Literally we can’t get people to work,” Mr Coppard said.
“This is just the madness of the system. The Government say they want growth. The thing that would help growth in South Yorkshire is an effective public transport system.”
During his mayoral campaign he pledged to bring the buses back under public control.
He said in 2019 South Yorkshire paid £17 million pounds to keep bus services on the road but next year are facing paying out £21 million “I’m worried about kids getting home from school. I’m worried about people losing their jobs.
“I’ve heard all sorts of stories about people not being able to keep their jobs because their buses have changed.
“I was talking to Evri logistics centre. They’ve got midnight shifts and they’ve got 1,000 people that turn up every night at midnight.
“We said to the bus company ‘can’t you put on a bus service that’s a viable route” and they have not done that. They are not helping get people to work.
“One in five bus journeys in South Yorkshire is related to health. Care workers going to work or people going to hospitals.
“I have talked to hundreds of people at public meetings and they all say the same thing: these bus services are genuinely ruining people’s lives.”
He told how one mum told him her son was beaten up as he waited for a bus that didn’t turn up.
While a woman at 74 had to walk two hours home with her shopping after her bus failed to arrive.
“This is a safe-guarding issue, a mental health issue, an economic issue, and a health issue,” he added.
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