Cromarty residents claim they've been left with the Monday morning blues on nine consecutive weeks when the 9.12am Stagecoach service to Inverness has either been very late or failed to turn up altogether.

And pressure was mounting for decisive action yesterday after claims repeated complaints have simply been ignored.

Janice Robertson, who this week branded Stagecoach management "unprofessional and incompetent", is amongst those to have inundated the bus company and Cromarty Community Council with complaints about the unpredictable service. They claim the transport company fob them off with breakdown excuses and do not respond to e-mails.

This week a local councillor asked Highland Council to investigate the root of the problem, while Stagecoach failed to respond to questions from the Journal to explain why the service is late and why its management do not reply to complaints.

Twenty-four-year-old Janice cannot drive due to her visual impairment and relies on the bus service to get to her work placement in a charity shop and to her college course.

She told the Journal she has been late for work on a number of occasions recently due to the bus failing to turn up on time.

Last Wednesday the situation came to a head when she tried to catch a bus to get to a job interview in Inverness.

She said, "I had a job interview at 1.30pm and I waited for the 11.12am bus, it did not come, which left me utterly furious. I had to resort to hitching in the hope that I might get there in time.

"I was unsuccessful so I waited for the 12.12pm bus, which did thankfully arrive, but it takes one hour and 10 minutes to get from Cromarty to Inverness as the company persists on going through North Kessock as part of the route, which most of us believe should not be done on our runs but on the Rosemarkie/Fortrose runs instead.

"I had to ring the company at which I had my interview to warn them that I did not think I would make it on time - which is not a great thing to have to do and does not look good to a potential employer."

She said a lot of people in Cromarty use the bus service to get to work, college, interviews and important appointments - and most of the time they are lucky if any of the buses turn up. "No matter which one you are waiting for there is always the highly likely chance that it won't even arrive," she said.

She is totally reliant on the buses and has frequently called Stagecoach from the bus stop to ask where the bus is.

"The running of Stagecoach is unprofessional and incompetent. Buses not turning up without any warning is totally unacceptable and we want something done about it," she said.

Cromarty community councillor Douglas MacPhee told the Journal the situation had "got beyond a joke".

He said there are not many problems with the earlier or later buses, and Stagecoach gives no explanation why there are regular problems with the 9.12am service. He said since taking over the run, Stagecoach has introduced a good hourly timetable, but the 9.12am bus which is the busiest of the day, is the most unreliable.

"Every Monday morning over the past nine weeks that bus didn't turn up or was at least half an hour late. It has happened every Monday and sometimes on Thursday. Last Thursday it did not turn up at all," he said.

"That is the bus everybody wants to get, but it never turns up and there will be 16 to 17 people standing there waiting for it.

"One couple paid £55 for a taxi to get them to Inverness to catch their train on time because the bus was late."

He said the issue is brought up at every community council meeting, but they have not got any response to their calls and emails to Stagecoach and feel they are now "running into a brick wall".

Local Highland councillor Craig Fraser, who has received several complaints about the service, has asked that David Summers from the Council's transport department probe the cause of the problem.

He has also been informed by the community council that its repeated letters, e-mails and phone messages to Stagecoach management requesting they attend a future meeting have received no response.

He said, "We need a really good bus service in a rural area like the Black Isle, it is crucial. My understanding is that the bus timetable should be set in stone, buses should turn up when they are supposed. We can't have a timetable that is ad hoc."

He said that Black Isle councillors have also been invited to join Dingwall and Seaforth councillors at a meeting with David McCallum and William Mainus of Stagecoach on March 22.

Though quizzed about specifics, a spokesperson for Stagecoach in the Highlands would only say, "Our services are constantly under review and we can confirm that small changes are planned to this service as part of our next network review in May, including amendments to the service allowing it to operate into Inverness bus station."

l.bradshaw@rsjournal.co.uk

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