Students at the University of the West of England have reacted with fury to the announcement that 1,450 buses a week had been cancelled by First Bus - saying the bus company had ‘literally cut off access to work and study for thousands of our staff and students’.
Student leader Rania Regaieg said the move by First Bus was ‘absolutely disastrous’, and would make it ‘virtually impossible’ for many students to access their campuses dotted around the city.
Ms Regaieg, the president and chair of the board of trustees at UWE’s Student Union, spoke out after First Bus announced a raft of bus cancellations because of a shortage of drivers. The bus routes worst affected were the 48, 48a and 49 which serve UWE’s Frenchay and Glenside campus in north east Bristol, with hundreds of individual bus journeys cancelled by First until at least April 2023.
Read more: First Bus just cancelled 1,450 Bristol bus services a week until at least April
“This is absolutely disastrous,” said Ms Regaieg, who is also a student governor at UWE, in a message to First on Twitter. “First Bus has literally cut off access to work and study for thousands of our staff and students at UWE until April 2023
“You first cancelled the 71 bus last year that connected our Frenchay Campus with Bower Ashton Campus and didn't bring it back even after continuous lobbying from the student union and UWE, and even a peaceful protest organised by our Bower Ashton students.
“You then introduced the 74 bus that replaced 71 and barely run regularly, and reduced the timetable of 74 bus to nearly nothing leaving our students and staff stranded again,” she added.
“The 70 bus timetable is now almost gone. Only a few buses left scheduled and let's all pray they'll actually turn up. You have also limited the timetable of the 48A bus that connects our Frenchay Campus with our Glenside Campus, then you announced today that the 48A bus is completely cancelled. And the cherry on top is when you decided it was completely reasonable to increase your bus ticket prices in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Charging more for a non-reliable and often non-existent bus service is a nasty move.
“A lot of us do not own cars and cannot afford to take Ubers on a daily basis when we do not live within close proximity of our university. Plus, we do not wish to increase our carbon footprint and harm our planet even more‼️
“Thank you First Bus for disconnecting our UWE campuses and our Bristol community until April 2023 and making it nearly impossible for our students to access their education and for our staff to teach and support our students,” she said, adding a call to Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees and West of England metro mayor Dan Norris. “I urge you to intervene immediately,” she said. “This is unacceptable and it's putting thousands of people at danger this winter,” she added.
First Bus said it regretted making the cancellations but had no choice with a shortage of drivers that Mayor Marvin Rees said yesterday was as big as 200.
A spokesperson for First Bus said: “Due to ongoing driver shortages, which are making it difficult to operate all journeys in our current timetables, we have removed some journeys across several services. The cancelled journeys, which are listed below, will show as cancelled on the First Bus app, and on the real time information screens at bus stops.
“We are doing our utmost to address the driver shortage but doing so will inevitably take some time. As a result, we expect these cancellations to remain in place until at least the next major change to timetables on Sunday 2nd April, which is a date agreed between all operators and the West of England Combined Authority.
“We regret having to do this as we appreciate it will cause some disruption, but by giving customers advance notice of cancellations rather than having to learn of them on the day, we want to make it easier for travel plans to be adjusted. Cancelling these journeys in advance also enables our operations teams to focus on delivering a more reliable service for our customers, rather than dealing with cancelling journeys on the day.
“We would like to thank customers for their patience and understanding as we manage this difficult situation,” they added. “Please continue to check the First Bus app for up-to-date service information.”
Read next:
- WECA accused of wasting £8m on new Bristol HQ after Yate "snub"
- Major First Bus changes in Bristol begin today - full list of services affected
- First confirm 178 bus service will be scrapped
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