More Cuts To Bus Services Serving Market Harborough

Bus operator Stagecoach is making cuts to its X7 service which links Market Harborough with Leicester and Northampton.

The half-hourly service Monday to Saturday will be reduced to hourly from next week.

The company is blaming the continued impact of the pandemic on staffing levels for the decision, which comes after rival operator Arriva reduced the frequency of its X3 service, between Market Harborough and Leicester, earlier this month.

Cllr Phil King, Leader of Harborough District Council, says council officials had not been made aware of the changes until today and is requesting a meeting with Stagecoach to discuss the changes.

He told Hfm he is extremely concerned about the impact it will have on passengers:

The X7 bus in Market Harborough

A Stagecoach spokesman told Hfm: “As is the case with other transport operators and many other organisations, we are seeing a continuing impact on our staffing levels as a result of the pandemic.

“We therefore looked at the Northamptonshire bus network to find routes where a temporary service reduction could be made and impact the smallest number of passengers.

“Out of 45 services we are making frequency changes to 4 of them.

“We recognise that the disruption to services we have seen over the past few weeks is unsettling and inconvenient for customers and therefore reducing services in some places should mean that we are able to provide services more reliably.”