Missed interviews and isolation - toll of bus cuts

90-year-old Eva Hine said she feels "stuck in the house" after her bus service was withdrawn

“I’m heartbroken by what they’ve done,” said Eva Hine.

The 90-year-old has lived just outside the village of Audlem in south Cheshire for more than 60 years. She said she faced being cut off from her local community, after the bus service covering her area was withdrawn by the operator.

D&G Bus, which operated the local Audlem services, said it had informed Cheshire East Council of its decision to stop the routes in June and the council could have chosen to assign the services to another bus operator if it wished.

Cheshire East Council said it was looking to reinstate most of the services in March.

16-year-old Rebecca said the ending of the bus service impacted her studies, her social life and her employment prospects

“I can’t get out, can’t even get into Audlem unless I manage to get somebody to pick me up and if they’re working they can’t always do it, so I’m stuck in the house,” Ms Hine said.

She is not the only person affected by the removal of routes serving this rural area.

Rebecca is 16 and goes to college in Crewe.

She has been using an on-demand hopper bus the council runs called Go Too, but she said it was not reliable enough.

“I missed an interview for a job,” she said.

“My first interview in ages and the Go Too didn’t come on time and I missed it, so now I don’t have a job.”

Lynne Smith also lives in the village. She told BBC Politics North West that the decision to remove the routes “came as a shock” and that there was not enough notice.

“We can’t get into Crewe or Nantwich or Market Drayton, but we also have a lot of people who come into the village from outside Audlem and they support our shops, so it’s a really bad time for Audlem at the moment,” she said.

MP Aphra Brandreth said she did not want to see rural areas cut off

Aphra Brandreth, the Conservative MP for the area, said the decision to stop the routes had left many people feeling isolated.

“It’s really important that rural areas don’t get cut off.

"Of course we need investment in public transport in urban areas, but it does sometimes feel like they’re prioritised because of the density of the population but actually we’re so dependent on it,” she said.

Local councillor Rachel Bailey said she would like to “see some permanency" in the interim measures from the council.

“We know we can never have the services of a town or city, but to leave us with services that aren’t working out is unacceptable.”

Mark Goldsmith from Cheshire East Council said franchising would help the authority make long term plans

Mark Goldsmith is the chair of Cheshire East Council’s highways and transport committee. He said the authority was looking to reinstate most of the services in March, when the contract will be re-procured.

The four routes were among 26 funded by Cheshire East Council.

“It was a unilateral decision by the bus company to withdraw the service,” he said.

“Cheshire East was funding the service, it was making it commercially viable."

Goldsmith said the authority was putting more money into its Go Too scheme which he said he hoped would help with reliability.

The bus services ceased at the end of August

The government recently said it wanted to give all councils the opportunity to run their buses through franchising.

Goldsmith said it would be something the authority would like to do.

“The beauty of the franchise option is that we can look more long term,” he said.

“The services withdrawn in Audlem have shown that 28 days' notice is just crazy.

"You can’t build a sustainable bus network if the supplier can just pull the plug that quickly, so franchising I think will give us a long term view on things like long-term funding, and we can look to build back the amount the public uses the bus services.”