Bus cuts leave elderly and disabled feeling 'isolated'

CUTS to a South Shields bus service have left elderly and disabled residents "isolated" and "neglected", campaigners have complained.

- By DANIEL HOLLAND

Transport chiefs have been urged to perform U-turn on the decision to reduce the Stagecoach 12 bus, which runs from South Shields town centre through Laygate, Harton, and Cleadon Park, from a half-hourly to an hourly service.

The move has sparked complaints of locals struggling to get to medical appointments or visit family, as well as finding it hard to navigate the hilly terrain towards Marsden on foot, with one 81-year-old pensioner saying he could have been run over after falling on a steep hill when he was forced to walk the hilly terrain back home.

Stagecoach has been accused by the South Tyneside Public Transport Users Group of failing to give 18 weeks notice of the changes, which is stipulated in the code of conduct of an agreement it has with the North East Combined Authority, while the North East mayor has been told to step in with public funds to restore the service.

The bus operator blamed “disappointing progress” with local authorities’ plans to install new bus priority measures for the 12’s struggles and said it was looking at alternative options to serve the area.

Nic Cook, who chairs the transport campaign group, told The Chronicle: “As the highest point in South Shields, it is not acceptable to expect elderly and disabled residents, which make up a large proportion of the population there, to be left isolated, unable to get to healthcare appointments, or to fork out for taxis to go about their daily living.