Campaigner demands better service
Arriva be warned, bus campaigner Peter Wiles is keeping you under observation.
Mr Wiles took his complaints - supported by a petition signed by 200 bus users - to Maidstone’s Joint Transportation Board.
He and other customers complain the No 19 Bearsted to Maidstone town centre is “unpunctual and unreliable”.
The submission was supported by Bearsted ward Cllr Val Springett (Con) who said that in the week preceding half-term, the 7.28am service, used by school children, failed to appear on three of the five days, and then didn’t show up on the first two days after half-term.
Arriva’s Maidstone depot manager Kevin Root admitted the company had suffered problems. Some, he said, were due to bus breakdowns and some to the town’s increasing congestion which had resulted in the loss of “26,000 service miles” in the Maidstone area alone during 2016.
But Mr Root promised new buses due to arrive within six weeks would bring improvements to reliability and that new bus schedules should improve punctuality.
Mr Wiles, the retired deputy head of Aylesford School, is urging passengers to record every bus delay or failure with forms which will be left in Newsrack near Tesco at Grove Green, Taylors newsagents in Bearsted Green, and Capitol in Snowdon Parade, Vinters Park, from May 1.
He said: “After a month or so, I will take the results back to the transportation board so they can see if the service has improved.”