Driver Shortage Hits Bus Services

A shortage of drivers is affecting some bus services in Market Harborough.

Over the past few days Stagecoach has been forced to cancel some of its service 18 journeys that link the town with Desborough, Rothwell and Kettering.

The company blames the impact of the pandemic, Brexit and the DVLA taking longer to process bus driver licences for the problem.

It has apologised to passengers but says it’s working hard to get new drivers on the road as quickly as possible.

Pic: Sky News

A spokesperson for Stagecoach Midlands told Hfm: “Our teams are working incredibly hard to ensure we continue to run the vast majority of our timetabled services and we remain focused on prioritising the services we know are most important for our customers.

“As is the case with many organisations and sectors in the economy, the pandemic is continuing to impact our business. Issues such as Brexit and the DVLA taking longer to process bus driver licences has added to these challenges beyond our control.

“We are working round the clock to recruit people into our team and train them in the roles that we need, and we are seeing a strong demand for jobs. However, it takes an average of 10 weeks for a professional bus driver to be fully trained and any delays outside our control in the processing of licences means we cannot get them on the road on our network as fast as we would like.

“We apologise to our customers who have been affected by any short term service changes, and we would like to thank them for their patience with our frontline teams whilst we work to get our new drivers on the road.

“Where we do have to make changes to our bus services, we are providing live updates to our customers through our social media channels.”

Arriva, who run other bus services serving Market Harborough and surrounding villages, would not confirm if any have been impacted by the driver shortage.