TWO sisters from St Albans are struggling to get to school on time because of the bus service. Tiffany Baker, aged 11, and Melody Baker-Brown, five, have both accumulated several late marks at school because the UniversityBus (Uno) service they use is la

TWO sisters from St Albans are struggling to get to school on time because of the bus service.

Tiffany Baker, aged 11, and Melody Baker-Brown, five, have both accumulated several late marks at school because the UniversityBus (Uno) service they use is late on a weekly basis.

Tiffany, a pupil at St Albans Girls School, and Melody, who goes to Wheatfields Infants School, catch the S1 bus outside their home in Newgate Close, Jersey Farm, and are late to school at least once a week.

Nightmare

Their mother Maxine Baker, aged 33, who works at the Magistrates Court in Hendon, is also often late for work because the S1 fails to get her to St Albans Station in time for her train.

The S1 service, which goes from Jersey Farm to the Mile House, is supposed to run every 20 minutes but on Monday Tiffany waited at her stop for nearly 40 minutes before one arrived.

Her step-father Jamie Brown said that the family's experience with Uno has been a "total nightmare" ever since they first moved to St Albans from London a year ago.

He added: "I can't have my daughters getting any more late marks at school and I'm also worried for the elderly Jersey Farm passengers. The S1 is their lifeline and they have to sit and wait for it in the freezing cold."

Mr Brown also said that Maxine has been on late S1 buses which took short cuts and missed out bus stops to make up for lost time. He added: "I've tried complaining but Uno are so vague and just blame their drivers. Even my eldest daughter has taken to ringing them up, but she gets the same excuses as I do."

Cllr Beric Read, who is parish councillor for Sandridge, said that he had received many complaints about the S1 buses and added: "Even my own fianc�e has had trouble with that service. It's been going on for a couple of months and I will be looking at this from a scrutiny point of view at council."

But Uno general manager Michael Finn said that he was happy with the service's performance and added: "We only have the very occasional incident and our last set of time checks revealed no late buses whatsoever. But I will be looking at Mr Brown's complaint in more detail to try and get to the bottom of his family's problem.