A group of pensioners were left shivering by a Bridgnorth High Street bus stop for up to two hours as they waited in vain for a service to arrive. Operators Arriva West Midlands admitted this week that the Kidderminster bus had broken down.
Three of the senior citizens and another woman decided to club together to pay for a taxi on Saturday morning. The woman – Hannah Reece, 38, from Bayston Hill, near Shrewsbury – paid for one of the pensioners who was on crutches. Hannah said this week she was upset for the group of 10 pensioners who were waiting to go home to villages on the way to Kidderminster on the 297 service.
“I have friends living in Worcester and I was encouraged to use the bus because I couldn’t believe that it would cost only £3 to go all the way,” explained Hannah. “I arrived in Bridgnorth at 11.30am in good time for the 11.45am bus scheduled to leave for Kidderminster. By 1.15pm I was feeling cold and so were the pensioners after standing there for 90 minutes and so decided to phone for the taxi.
“The service runs every two hours and so it would have meant waiting until 1.45pm for the next bus. One of the pensioners had tried to get through to the bus company to find out what was happening, but without any success. The elderly people don’t get much pension and with a coffee and cake it would have cost them about £12.” Hannah said that the entire journey had taken her about four hours and would have taken 50 to 55 minutes by car.
Keith Myatt, press officer for Arriva West Midlands, said that a bus had broken down at Kidderminster. “That is the farthest end of the route,” he said. “We had to call out an engineer and replace the bus, but by that time the 11.45am service from Bridgnorth was lost.”