A PENSIONER has criticised Ipswich Buses after she was forced to wait nearly half-an-hour for a bus that never arrived.

Tom Potter

A PENSIONER has criticised Ipswich Buses after she was forced to wait nearly half-an-hour for a bus that never arrived.

Little did Kathleen Ward, know that the bus had been cancelled because the bus company was operating a Saturday service over the Christmas and New Year period - and there is no number two bus service on a Saturday.

Mrs Ward, 75, who lives in Campbell Road, had been waiting for the bus to take her to a doctor's appointment.

She believes the company didn't do enough to warn people of the changes to the service, which came under threat of termination earlier this year. She said: “I never saw any notification anywhere.

“The annoying thing is that the number two goes all over the place, so it wasn't just people in Priory Heath that were affected but also those in Cauldwell Hall Road, Spring Road and at many other stops. Those people only have that bus to rely on to get into Ipswich.

“It was bitterly cold and there was no shelter from the elements so I turned around and came back home.”

Mrs Ward contacted her local councillor John Cook said that her complaint was among several from people left out in the cold.

Mr Cook, Priory Heath ward councillor, said: “The first I knew about it was when I started getting calls from angry residents.

“They live in area that has no Saturday bus service, so effectively they had no service at all over Christmas and we had a situation where an elderly lady was waiting out in the cold for a bus that never came.

“After all the controversy over route two earlier this year, I would think it fairly obvious for Ipswich Buses to allow a bus to run over Christmas.”

Malcolm Robson, managing director of Ipswich Buses explained the changes to services and insisted enough was done to warn people. He said: “Ipswich Buses has been operating a reduced service between Christmas and New Year.

“We advertised the fact that a Saturday service would be running in place of a normal service, which included information on The Evening Star website in the first week of December and on the side of our buses.

“Every other route is running as a Saturday service but route two is one of the few that doesn't run on a Saturday.

“We have received two complaints which we responded to by putting up posters in the area, warning people about the changes.”

- Was enough done to warn people of the alterations? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk