Derbyshire buses: Frustrated residents complain about waiting for buses in ‘freezing’ weather as Hulleys of Baslow attend meeting organised by MP

Long waiting times, unreliable tracking apps, cancelled services and road works were discussed during the meeting on Thursday, January 18.

Alf Crofts, the managing director of Hulleys of Baslow listened to complaints – with issues at Killamarsh, Baslow, and Holymoorside mentioned.

Mrs Scott of Mastin Moor said: “After the bus services were altered around Mastin Moor recently and the bus is no longer coming to Mastin Moor Estate. Residents, including people with disabilities, have to walk down to the main road to catch number 77 into Staveley, wait and then catch a bus to Crystal Peaks.

"I did this one day and I left my house at 9.50 in the morning. It was nearly 10.30am when number 80 bus came and I got into Crystal Peaks at 11.20. For me, this is a long journey, especially when it is freezing cold. People can't wait all that time for a bus to come and be out in the cold.”

Marion from Holymoorside added: “I found that this service is much better than it was before, however it all seems to fall down after three o'clock for some reason. And very often we're waiting for the bus at 3.35pm, which doesn't come then 4.25pm doesn’t come and sometimes 5.35pm doesn't come. So we are sat there in the cold, not knowing if the bus will come and the tracking up is not always working"

Killamarsh Cllr Kevin Wood said: “There have been a couple of noticeable incidents recently where departure from Crystal Peaks, has turned right at Halfway and gone straight down to Eckington. Somebody was waiting for that one at the the other side of the roundabout where it should have come, it was on the tracker app, but the bus turned right and went off instead.

"Another issue is a recent route change for services 80, 26 and 26a. Residents are commenting that they've now lost the link for Westfield School. Why does the 80 service on its way from and to Crystal Peaks go halfway through the roundabout, up Station Road and to Moss Road? All the way from when you turn to Moss way up to Crystal Peaks, doesn’t have a single bus stop. So why is it going up there instead of turning right at Halfway round about to go past DC cars as that would reinstate the link for Westfield School for the kids?”

Cllr Brian Clamp added: “We’ve noticed you have large sections where buses go through, that have no bus stops. My view, is that we need to work together with the community and yourself so that we can have buses that serve us and also are profitable to you. What can we do to work together?”

Mr Crofts said: “Our problems stem back from Covid, which I know is nearly four years ago. But I purchased this company on March 10, 2020. Before that, I was a driver for 16 and a half years. And six days after the deal was done, we had our first lockdown.

"The government, very helpfully, started a support grant scheme. But no one told us we weren't allowed to count loan repayments as an expense. Suddenly we were not only not eligible for the grant anymore - we needed to pay the money back.

"That made it very challenging in terms of running the business because we're running it with basically both hands tied behind our back, with any support from the Government gone. On top of that, Brexit, caused a lack of availability of parts for buses.

"All of those things came to a perfect storm. We found ourselves with a shortage of buses and shortage of drivers and a shortage of ways of getting over that. Many our services run every hour, if we miss one bus it is noticeable. If Stagecoach has buses running every 15 minutes, if one bus doesn’t show up is not that important.

"To resolve the maintenance situation, we recently purchased another company with better engineering facilities. That allowed us to borrow buses to get our services up and running. We went mad on recruiting people, put the wages up, so we had an influx of drivers.

"Thanks to both of those things together, from about a week before Christmas, our services have been better. Things are still not perfect. One of the main gripes we have is the roadworks in Eckington which are taking up a vast amount of time, costing about 40 minutes a trip.It takes only 40 minutes to make a bus basically useless and unreliable.

"Roadworks in Baslow don't help and they have come back again for another three months, which slows the buses in Baslow, and that causes issues in Killamarsh. We're doing our best, I think we're a lot better than we were. And hopefully, somebody with the right amount of power and control can help resolve those roadworks quickly.”

Cllr Charlotte Culpit from Derbyshire County Council said: “Bus trackers are certainly something we can look at from the council perspective. In terms of roadworks, I think we all have frustrations about them. It's something we've been trying to work on quite hard with the network management team.

"Unfortunately, the two sets that have been mentioned are not county council’s roadworks. The ones in Eckington are by Cadent and in Balsow by Severn Tret. They're both utility roadworks that utility companies would say we need in order to keep, power and water to our homes. We try and manage them from the council's perspective. In terms of the concerns you've raised today, Alf, we will talk about minimising disruption. I also think it's fair to say that they're both fairly recent sets of work, so probably don't relate entirely to the wider issues.”

Mr Rowley summed up the meeting saying: “This has been a difficult few months for Hulleys and your drivers. Residents, particularly from those areas that have been the most affected, have been very frustrated over the past few months.

"It is tentatively positive that things are looking like they are moving in the right direction.”