Mum demands £450 refund as 'dreadful' bus makes daughter late for school almost every day
Shola Lee
Featured Image Credit: SWNS
A furious mum has demanded a refund on her daughter's annual bus pass.
Lindsey Hall, from Boughton-under-Blean in Kent, says she's had enough of the bus showing up late and has asked for her money back on the £450 pass her daughter, Lara, uses to get to school.
She has even claimed that the 7:45am bus is sometimes so packed that it drives past kids waiting to get to school.
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"The morning bus is so full that it just goes sailing past and leaves her standing there," she said.
"It makes me and my daughter very anxious, and other parents have told me the same thing. It's particularly bad for the Year 7s. They stand there just crying. They’re stressed about going to secondary school in the first place."
This often means that daughter Lara misses her morning mentoring, having to catch up later, Lindsey claims: "The 8:15 bus is very often late meaning she has to wait for sometimes an hour for it to show up," she said.
"Today the 8:15 bus didn’t even show up so I ended up taking my daughter and her friends to school meaning they were late for school.
"I would love to take her in myself but I have to work and drop off my youngest child at school."
And this has led to Lindsey demanding the money back on Lara's Travel Saver bus pass.
As the mum explained: "We are paying Stagecoach around £450 a year for a bus pass which is absolutely disgusting, as she's only managing to get on the bus to come home from school.
"How can they have a conscience? They just don’t care, but they’ll happily take the money off us. It’s just not good enough - I'm at my wits' end.
"We have emailed Stagecoach on several occasions but to no avail - they simply do not want to know."
However, a spokesperson for the company told Tyla that there were more than enough sufficient busses: "We appreciate how much many young people rely on buses to get to school. We operate three buses in the morning from Boughton towards Canterbury. The first of these is at 0725 which we swiftly substituted for a double deck in September to help with capacity. The next bus is at 0745 which is also a double deck, and there's a further double deck bus at 0815.
"Although the 0745 bus is a busy service, there is enough capacity overall to carry everyone that needs to travel. We're always happy to help advise our customers on the different options available and we are in communication with local schools to improve awareness of bus journey options for students travelling into Canterbury."
What do you think of the buses being late?