Ten of thousands of pounds are being spent every year repairing damage caused by vandals to buses in South Wales, research conducted by Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood has found.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Assembly Member for South Wales Central to two council-owned companies, Newport Transport and Cardiff Bus, revealed money spent on repairing criminal damage has risen sharply in the last three years.
In 2007, Cardiff Bus had to pay £38,500 due to vandalism but, by 2009, this bill increased to £58,700. Similarly, Newport Transport’s bill jumped from £6,344 to £7,367 during the same period.
Whilst no Newport Transport drivers were physically assaulted last year, their counterparts in the Welsh capital were not so fortunate with 19 attacks recorded. In the last five years, more than a 100 drivers working for Cardiff Bus have been physically assaulted, with a further 81 reported incidents of spitting at drivers and 103 verbal assaults.
Newport Transport said verbal abuse is so “commonplace” that drivers do not tend to report it. A recent straw poll at the company found that drivers on dayshift reported a maximum of four per week and this doubled for colleagues working on a later shift.
In general, violence against drivers and the number of days off sick have declined over the last five years which has coincided with both firms rolling out CCTV cameras on their vehicles.
Cardiff Bus has also issued drivers with ‘spit kits’ in a bid to try and capture the DNA of people who spit on them.
In a bid to reduce their vandalism bill, they also allowed South Wales Police to mount a covert operation to catch stone-throwers in the Ely area of Cardiff. A bendy bus carrying six plain clothed officers plus dog handlers was made to appear like a normal service which ended up with two arrests and 17 referrals for anti-social behaviour orders after it was bombarded with stones.
In August, four people were prosecuted at Cardiff magistrates’ court for terrorising a driver and his passengers during one trip also in Ely.
Ms Wood said: “I am concerned that so much money is spent annually on repairing vandalism.
“Anecdotal evidence suggests that stone-throwing is the main method of criminal damage, which is not only very dangerous to both drivers and passengers, but can also lead to withdrawn services.
“From the statistics, it looks as though buses are generally becoming safer places for drivers and passengers but too many incidents are still being recorded.
“From an environmental aspect, everything must be done to encourage greater use of public transport to reduce our carbon footprint. People won’t use public transport unless they have confidence that they are safe.”
She added: “Bus services are vital community assets and, for the older or isolated people in particular, they are lifelines to the world outside their front door.
“Vandals and those who attack drivers need to think carefully of their actions before acting because the consequences of their actions on the rest of society can be far-reaching.”
