Bus cuts for Colney Heath

Colney Heath residents have been left in the lurch after a main bus route limited its services to once every two hours.

The 304 bus route stops in Colney Heath on the journey from Hitchin to Welham Green, and has seen services cut in half due to dwindling passenger numbers.

The changes, which came in to action on June 2, were apparently not made clear to residents using the service, with some stops left without an updated timetable.

The cutbacks come after services on Sundays were cut, and weekday services later than 6.30pm were stopped.

Cllr Chris Brazier suggested this is part of the reason passenger numbers were low.

He said: “If you don’t provide buses at times customers want them, they you won’t have the passenger numbers you need.

“The council is encouraging green travel, but without a decent bus service in our area, people will revert back to cars.”

The company running the service, Centrebus, does not receive a subsidiary from the council and therefore has to run services that are commercially viable.

Dave Shelley, commercial director of Centrebus, said: “The cost savings mean we are able to continue to operate the majority of services without public subsidy from the county council.

“You will appreciate that reliance on public funding is not really a sustainable position in the current financial climate for local authorities.”

Centrebus are currently in talks with the council, but for now services will run once every two hours from 7am-6.30pm Monday to Saturday.