Bus cuts leave elderly 'isolated and neglected'
LDRSCuts to a bus service have left elderly and disabled residents "isolated" and "neglected", according to campaigners.
Transport officials have been urged to reverse a decision to reduce services on the Stagecoach 12 route, which runs through parts of South Shields.
Local people have been struggling to get to medical appointments or visit family due to the cuts, campaigners said.
The bus firm said it was investigating options to increase the frequency of the service but the solution had to be "sustainable".
In May, the service was cut from a half-hour service to an hourly service, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
South Tyneside Public Transport Users' Group said some people who used the bus lived on the highest point of South Shields.
The group's chair Nic Cook said: "We refuse to leave residents left isolated, their physical, emotional and mental health and wellbeing neglected.
"Several residents stated that their families can no longer visit them because they cannot travel there reliably on public transport and cannot afford to pay for taxis to get there."
'Cannot cover cuts'
Resident Tom Atkinson, 81, said he had been injured in a fall as he tried to walk up a hill while carrying his shopping after missing the bus.
He said: "If you miss the 12, then there are five banks you have to walk up - it is a bit too much."
Stagecoach said its current hourly service was provided at its "own commercial risk" without support from the North East Combined Authority (NECA) or Nexus.
It said it hoped some of the money provided by the government to improve local bus routes could be used to fund the 12 service, which runs from the town centre through Laygate, Harton, and Cleadon Park.
Nexus official Helen Matthews said government funds were limited and it had to prioritise the money for areas which were at risk of having no bus services at all.
She said: "The recent scale of cuts to commercial bus routes and frequencies is greater than our whole publicly funded provision can cover."
Labour's North East Mayor Kim McGuinness said she felt for the residents of South Shields.
"I remain very concerned the operator hasn't properly engaged with passengers - it isn't good enough and needs to change," she said.