Fed-up passengers united by late buses

COMPLAINTS against a St Albans bus service are mounting as more and more passengers are forced to wait in the cold when nothing arrives.

A couple of weeks ago, St Albans District and Colney Heath Parish Councillor Chris Brazier, spoke out on behalf of angry UniversityBus (Uno) passengers living in his ward who were left stranded at the bus stop on a weekly basis when the 304 bus failed to show.

Now a Uno passenger living in Jersey farm who uses the S3 service to get to and from St Albans City Station each day has claimed that her situation is even worse.

The passenger, who does not wish to be named, said that the evening service was especially unreliable and last week both the 6.10pm and 6.30pm buses to return to Jersey Farm on Tuesday and Wednesday failed to show.

With morning services just as unreliable, she said that on several occasions she had to take her fellow passengers to the station in her car and now the group had become friends because they spent so long waiting at the bus stop together.

Said the Larkswood Rise resident: "It's so frustrating: we stand at the bus stop in the freezing cold watching every other bus except ours go past. I've paid for an annual pass and I'm not getting the service - UNO passengers are treated like rubbish."

The S3 service, which runs from New Greens to Jersey Farm, is supposed to turn up every 20 minutes on Monday to Friday but according to passengers, at least two buses have failed to show every week since the summer.

The group of angry Jersey Farm bus passengers, who now go for lunch together on a regular basis, have been keeping a diary of late S3 buses with the intention of presenting it to Uno at the end of the year.

Michael Finn, general manager of Uno, said a couple of weeks ago in response to Cllr Brazier's complaint that late buses were an "exceptional case" to their otherwise smooth-running service. No-one was available to comment on the Jersey Farm situation this week.