Bus bewilderment

Sir, I read with interest Rachel Brewer’s letter ‘Stagecoach complaints’ in the

Banner on October 7. Having also been denied access to a virtually empty bus I could understand her bewilderment.

I had walked along the higher level coastal path from Kildonan to Whiting Bay on August 31st and anticipated travelling back on the 15:37 bus. The timetable on the bus stop at Ashdale Bridge stated that this 323 service was coded ‘XSch’: ‘X’ meant it terminated at Kildonan and ‘Sch’ that it operated on schooldays only. It was a school day and I only wanted to go as far as Kildonan so all seemed fine. However, when the bus arrived the driver told me I could not board as it was a designated school bus and that he had no facility for taking payment. As the next timetabled bus was also coded ‘Sch’ I had to assume that it, too, would be unavailable for fare-paying passengers.

Rather than wait for almost two hours for the next bus I walked back to Kildonan feeling most annoyed that the advertised service was not provided. The notice declared that the service ‘operates’ which any reasonable person would interpret as meaning that it was available to the general public and not exclusively to schoolchildren.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised given the number of other misinformation signs I found during my visit.

Yours,

Mary Saunders County Durham