Driver shortage blamed for 'awful' Tidworth buses

Tidworth town centre is seeing dozens of buses cancelled every day, ruining many morning commutes

Tidworth's bus services are being branded "a nightmare" by locals left unable to get to work, school and doctors appointments.

The Activ8 service connects the town with Andover and Salisbury, but has lately faced huge numbers of cancellations.

The British Army is among those criticising the service, which also serves Tidworth's military garrison.

The main operator affected, Stagecoach, says it does not have enough drivers.

• Listen: Tidworth's bus problems on BBC Sounds

I spent a weekday rush hour joining commuters waiting for what is supposed to be the staple local bus route for this corner of Wiltshire, scheduled every fifteen minutes.

But by 08:00, Stagecoach South had already announced no fewer than twenty different Activ8 bus cancellations for the day ahead.

Morning Activ8 buses can often be overcrowded because so many services to Andover are cancelled

Michelle Turnage says she can't get a refund on her son's £700 bus pass, despite now having to regularly drive him to college

"Its a nightmare," says Michelle Turnage, whose son uses the bus to get to his college apprenticeship. "We've paid for the college bus pass, nearly £700 pounds, but I'm using extra fuel to go and pick him up". She can't get a refund.

Joanna uses the bus every morning getting to work, she too describes it as "an absolute nightmare" with no information until the moment of cancellation.

Other commuters describe being regularly late for work, one says she set off an hour earlier than she used to, others describe relying on partners to pick them up.

I meet students too, travelling to Andover for college and school, describing their attendance being marked down because the bus is so often late, and being stuck until nightfall to get home unless parents come to pick them up.

"It's very stressful for me and my girls," says mum Sasha O'Neill who has - yet again - been late dropping her children at primary school because of so many cancellations.

Mum Sasha O'Neill says she's 'stressed' and her children 'embarrassed' by how often bus cancellations make them late for school

As a garrison town, the British Army's Director of Basing and Infrastructure is also concerned about the impact on soldiers and their families.

Writing on Twitter, Maj Gen Richard Clements says he is "acutely aware of the frustrations over local bus services" and says Army Command is "working very closely with Wiltshire Council to understand and resolve these issues".

Stagecoach South says it is maintaining a half-hourly bus service, but "driver shortages are continuing to impact the bus and coach sector right across the UK and based on the resource we have available, we have had to make some short-term changes to our services".

It says it is "working hard to recruit more drivers" at job centres and career events, including for people leaving the army.

Some Activ8 buses are also operated by Salisbury Reds, who say they too are suffering from a lack of drivers but add their Activ8 cancellations are "exceptionally rare" with Stagecoach facing the bigger issues.

Wiltshire Council says it is working with Stagecoach to try to resolve the problems, but the cancellations are not affecting services it uses taxpayer cash to subsidise.

"It's a fundamental problem we have in Wiltshire with the labour market here with driver shortages," says Councillor Mark McClelland, the council's Cabinet Member for Transport.

"We've seen it in other areas with our waste collection services, with taxis, we don't have enough drivers in the labour market, so it's a big structural problem we're working to resolve."

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