Pupils left stranded after bus service between Wyber's Wood and Healing was cancelled

“Mike_Hunt, obviously they're still standing there from wednesday morning. Or maybe they walked... or maybe the school did what it should've done in the first place and made alternative arrangements.

Delphie, because people and their habits do not remain fixed.

You seem to conveniently forget that Stagecoach is a PRIVATE COMPANY. You can be forgiven for not knowing how a bus company works but each bus has a cost per day, £250 per vehicle I believe it is. That is the outlay on the vehicle including drivers, parts, mechanics, tax, insurance etc etc etc.
Each depot has a pot to play with, its based on revenue (ticket sales, adverts etc) and savings (drivers doing as they're taught and driving properly, buses not breaking down etc).

There isn't an endless pot of cash sitting in the mangers desk drawer. It all has to be balanced. You (and come to think of it so do us drivers) want newer buses so the money has to flow in. Running bus routes at a loss does not bring the money in. Chances of the 105 pulling in £250? Plus because it runs at peak times there is nothing for the bus to drop in on. The Healing/Laceby buses drop into the 12 route at 9am so thats them fixed up. The 105 bus returns to depot and sits there waiting for a failure.

There are many out goings including shareholders (yes, I hear you booing) but that is what private business is all about.”

“And the boss of Stagecoach was knighted!!!!They are always changing the times and routes which they can never follow up with the relevant time=tables,yes, I know they're on line but not everyone has access to a computer. Why can't they just organise the routes and times and stick with them?”

“So end of the week.
How has the Healing pupils managed to and from School since Wednesday?
Have not seen kids hanging around Wybers during the day, so must have made it then.
No good moaning about the lack of information now, as everybody knows the situation.
Oh happy days!”

“I know he didn't say it, but the implication was there.

I agree that stagecoach can't write to every household, but surely you can see that just one phone call/letter/email to the school and all this could have been avoided?

Like you say, people don't always read notices on buses, but for no one who used the 105 service to have noticed is a bit odd!”

“GyBusDriver never said it was put on for free, the bus was put on at a cost of loosing an hour from another route, similar in the afternoon. I know that to be true because I drove the 105 in the afternoon.

The info was given and publicised, you cannot expect Stagecoach to write to every household in Grimsby. The fare alteration notices go up a week prior to the increase, roadwork notices and diversion notices go up but most people are oblivious to them.”

“Funny that the only person who has seen a sign on a bus is GYBusDriver! Which bus was that then? Not one person I have spoken to saw one, parents and children alike!

As for Wybers being 1.7 miles from Healing, my house is 2 miles from the school, it's an estate not a bus stop!

Whilst stagecoach did put a bus on eventually for the kids to get to school, this wasn't until 9am when most had already made their way there (I know the time I saw the bus!), and please don't try to make out it was done for free by saying a bus was taken from a paying service, the kids who got on it paid, as they always do, the 105 was never a free service. By the time stagecoach agreed to giving a bus for them to get home the school had already made other arrangements.

The argument here is not that our children need a bus, they are all quite big enough to walk or cylce to school, the problem was lack of information given to us and the school and then the blatant lies to cover up. A simple we are sorry, our mistake, would have sufficed!”

“Wybers Wood to Healing School, 1.7 miles. Does it really warrant a bus? The whole route has an adequate cycle/footpath. That rules out the traffic argument. It's bone idle lazyness.

Nice to see the telegruf laying the blame fully at stagecoaches feet. Nasty old private company expecting to at least get the cost of running the bus back.
Notices were placed on the buses, i even did some of them myself on a spare shift.

When stagecoach found out the school hadn't informed the parents, what did we do. Did we say "tough sh*t pal, yer on yer own!" No... we took a bus from a paying service and sent it to Wybers in an effort to get the kids to school. In the afternoon, we then ran it again so the kids could get home. We didn't have to. The service has legally been cut.

Of course they miss these little details out. Nasty old company. Bring back Council corps, have tax money thrown at routes that don't work. That obviously makes perfect sense.”

“"Stagecoach says adequate notice was given" hmmm, clearly not! It would seem the bare minimum notice was given.

The justification Mr Nolan hides behind is utterly feeble. A notice in a newspaper 3 months earlier is hardly acceptable and most definitely lacking in common courtesy. Such low, petty play ground tactics!”

“Bike + rain coat = child arriving at school!”

“Lets be honest here. Healing is not the catchment school for Wybers Wood, Aylesby Park, Great Coates or Willows - It is the school of choice, since their catchment school is Whitgift. The reason children from these areas are accepted into Healing is that the Government insist on parents having a choice and the school has places after catchment children have been admitted. The parents of all of the children travelling from outside the catchment area must have known that things can change and I am sure that it is quite clear in the information provided on admission that transport is the parents responsibility. The Telegraph did publicise the threat to withdraw the bus and it is true that a subsequent article confirmed the withdrawal of some routes without mentioning the 105. That may have given some parents the impression that the threat to the 105 had passed when in fact it had not.
As to the children walking or cycling to Healing, if anyone doubts that hundreds of children could not travel along the cycle / footpath in relative safety, go and stand at Toll Bar roundabout and watch many hundreds of children, from three different directions, do just that every day.”