Local Labour AM Jeff Cuthbert has welcomed the news that bus routes running through his constituency will be saved after a new operator stepped in to provide services along the routes.
In April, main service provider Stagecoach announced that it would be dropping several routes completely from mid-July, with other routes seeing significant timetable reductions.
Last month, Jeff met with Stagecoach senior management to discuss how these cuts – which were made on a commercial basis – would affect his constituents and what could be done to save services along these routes so that as few people would be affected as possible.
Since then, Harris Coaches has stepped in to fill the gap on many of the threatened routes, meaning that disruption to passengers will be kept to a minimum.
Jeff Cuthbert AM said,
“I am pleased that Caerphilly County Borough Council have managed to secure an agreement with Harris Coaches to provide services that were threatened with reductions because of the previous operator’s decision to pull out of the routes.
“Having met Stagecoach last month, it is clear that their decision to pull out of certain routes and reduce services on others was made on a commercial basis.
“The Welsh Government has had to make some very difficult decisions in terms of funding it provides to local authorities to subsidise bus routes; these decisions have been forced on it by funding cuts passed on by the Tory-led UK Government.
“However, I am pleased that by working together with Caerphilly County Borough Council and bus operators, we have managed to preserve services as much as possible so that disruption to my constituents who rely on these services will be kept to a minimum.”
