Arriva apologises after Darlington bus service delays

Arriva North East has said improvements are being made

A bus operator is being put under "pressure" by a council to improve its reliability amid delays to services.

Arriva passengers in Darlington said they had been missing hospital appointments and arriving late for work.

Councillors suggested it might need to look for an alternative operator or it might need to acquire its own buses.

Arriva said improvements were being made, including some new timetables, and apologised to customers.

Labour councillor for Darlington's Cockerton ward, Jan Cossins, said some people had lost their jobs because they were repeatedly late for work.

"This is not good enough, I do think that we may need to look for another operator, or use some of the Tees Valley Combined Authority transport funding and acquire our own fleet of buses," she said.

Ms Cossins said residents were also missing important hospital appointments.

She said: "I have a resident who needs to go to the doctors from Branksome, she is unable to walk there - she has to leave her house an hour early to ensure she can get there in time.

"This is a few minutes bus journey, and there has been a couple of times she has missed her appointment."

Arriva has faced criticism over its reliability of Darlington services for more than a year, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Darlington Borough Council's cabinet member for local services Andy Keir said reports of concern had been handed over to Arriva.

"It's something we're working hard on and trying to move forward, there's a lot of pressure we're putting on Arriva," he said.

Recruitment drive

The bus operator said improvements are being made, including a new timetable for some services.

It said it was "well aware" of the "service delivery related challenges" which had impacted its customers in recent months.

"For this, we apologise and would like to reassure our customers of our commitment to resolving these issues," an Arriva spokesperson said.

It added that 14 new buses had been introduced and it was "heavily focused" on driver recruitment in the area.