"It's rubbish", 90-year-old Bella Spasojevic fumes. That's her blunt summary of the bus services to 'Little Europe' in Edgeley, where residents say they have been left stranded.
“(The bus) doesn’t come, or you are waiting here and you don’t know whether it’s coming or not,” Bella says, adding that she had been left waiting for a bus just last week.
Bus giant Stagecoach has come under renewed fire after residents complained they were still being left stranded - despite promises the ongoing problem has been solved.
People in the Little Europe area were fed up with the 328 circular service to Stockport often missing out their streets - leaving them late for work and appointments, or facing a long walk back if coming home. Enquiries revealed larger buses had been heading straight up Edgeley Road as they were too heavy to cross the Stockholm Road bridge.
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But last month Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) said Stagecoach had agreed only smaller vehicles would be used, to ‘ensure the correct route will now be operated at all times’. Only days later residents of Little Europe - so called because of its street names - were reporting they were again being let down by the service.
Bob Heywood, 86, takes Bella into Stockport to do shopping as the bus has become so unreliable. “The 328 used to be a good bus and I’m going back a few years now because I used to work for Greater Manchester Transport and then Stagecoach took over,” says Bob, who lives on Dale Street.
Asked about the new proposals, he adds: “I’ll wait and see until it happens. It’s no good saying it will be good because you don’t know, it could end up just like the 328.”
Fliss Eavers says she was unable to get a bus back to the area from the town centre recently. Although Fliss can tackle a lengthier walk if needs be, she did not want to leave an elderly neighbour waiting for a bus to drop her on Vienna Road.
“A bus turned up and I noticed it was one of the bigger double-deckers they say can’t go that way [through Little Europe] because they are too big,” she tells the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
“The elderly lady said ‘are you going down Dale Street’ and the driver said ‘no’. I also prefer to go down Dale Street. I’m a lot younger- I’m 65 - but it was a long walk for this woman to get home.”
It was the third bus that had not been able to take the lady home and Fliss decided she would sit with her and make sure she got back okay.
"I said ‘it’s not on this’ and the driver said there were no buses going down Dale Street that day,” says Fliss, who worked at Stockport College for 20 years. She says: “I asked how this poor lady was going to get home. I said ‘this is ridiculous, I’m going to have to get a taxi for this lady and I’m going to get a receipt and charge it to Stagecoach.'”
However, her neighbour did not want to get a taxi, and the pair eventually got a Number 11 bus which dropped them at Alexandra Park. “It’s quite a walk for someone her age,” says Fliss.
“I felt so sorry for her. Five buses turned up and not one of them was on the route it should be. I thought that was wrong, it’s not fair at all. There’s nothing official to say anywhere that some buses may not go down that route because it’s too heavy for the bridge. But I would still complain anyway, because they are not doing the route.”
Stagecoach has again apologised for the problems - which it says arose from some smaller vehicles not being ‘as reliable as required’ - and promised it is ‘working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible’.
When the LDRS visited Edgeley on Wednesday morning the 328 seemed to be running as it should again - but confidence in the reliability of the service has clearly been hit.
“When I first moved here 30 years ago it was good, but it's lost its oomph lately,” Dale Street resident Frances Brakewell tells us. "I have no idea where it goes now with all the roadworks and the [building] the new bus station in the middle of Stockport. The drivers don’t always tell you where it’s going sometimes.”
She adds that one neighbour was not dropped off where she expected as the bus took a different route and found herself heading back into Stockport. Now she always checks before getting on board.
“You will say ‘are you going to Dale Street’ and the driver says ‘no’ - so what’s the point in getting on?”
As part of a longer-term solution to the 328 issue, Stagecoach is proposing to replace it with a revised, Edgeley-wide 309/310 service, running at a 30-minute frequency. But Frances is not convinced that buses running every 30 minutes is enough and says that people parking on double yellow lines at bus ‘pinch points’ - such as the corner of Dale Street and Petersbury Road - will also need enforcement by wardens.
“They want people to give up their cars and get the bus - but the buses are not reliable and they are not going to take you straight to where you need to go, either,” she says. “The bus route I think will be solved if they use more buses and smaller buses. More buses more often is what they need.”
But Lisa Loftus, of Petersburg Road, thinks a 30-minute service would probably be adequate.
“I would say so, it would be for me because I use the app so I can see when the bus is coming and I can time it right,” she says. "As long as people know when the bus is due it should be all right.”
But the 38-year-old energy company worker has had her share of frustrations with the 328 service. “It doesn’t come up here if it’s the longer bus, you have to get off at Castle Street and walk up,” she says.
“It’s annoying having to come up and walk up when you have shopping as I could just get off here and I live across the road."
And while Lisa can easily walk over to the stop at Bridgehall Community Centre if the bus cuts out Little Europe, she says that’s ‘not possible’ for her older neighbours.
Coun Matt Wynne, who represents Edgeley, was left furious after learning residents were still experiencing difficulties - and has questioned Stagecoach’s fitness to run the service. “This madness needs to stop,” he tells the Local Democracy Service.
“The public have been informed that Stagecoach has buses, in sufficiency and adequacy to run this route as it is contracted to. The companies are paid a good subsidy to run this route, otherwise there would be no bus through here. Public subsidy is going to one of the biggest bus companies in Britain to run this community bus service.”
He continues: “Surely there is a contractual question, a legal one, at that now about the fact the public are paying a bus company for a service they aren't getting. This is why franchising can't come a day too soon as we know then where the buck stops.”
Stagecoach confirms it had ‘unfortunately continued to have problems serving some sections of the 328 route’ and ‘sincerely apologised’ to customers who had been affected.
A spokesperson adds: “We have put in additional buses to enable us to serve this route but some of these smaller buses, that are needed to comply with the restrictions on this route, have not been as reliable as required, and we are working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible.
“We continue to review this daily and have drafted in extra resources to help with this. We are also awaiting the outcome of a proposed solution that seeks to resolve these issues and meets the needs of residents.
“Once confirmed we will work with TfGM to publicise the changes to ensure those affected are aware."
Responding to criticism from Coun Wynne, they add: “We currently operate the 328 service under contract. As with any contract that we operate on behalf of TfGM there is a contractual management system in place which includes adjustment to any payments we receive to run the service.
“These adjustments cover a number of criteria, including service performance. The contract process for the 328 follows a similar mechanism to the one that bus services will operate to under franchising.”
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