More than 100 Plymouth bus journeys cancelled in driver shortage

Plymouth Citybus has cancelled more than 100 journeys due to driver shortages.

Many of the 104 journeys are to and from the city centre including to Derriford Hospital, Elburton and Ernesettle.

Announcing the changes on its website it said the company had faced challenges with staff availability.

The firm said it was concentrating on core services for workers, students and healthcare patients and visitors.

A spokesperson said: "We believe this issue will be short-term as we move through the current spike of absence and progress the training of over 40 new drivers.

"We've tried to focus our resources on routes which get students to school, key workers to their jobs, and patients and visitors to healthcare, but we know that this will cause inconveniences for some of you, for which we apologise."

The company said it was working to get more drivers on the road, and was actively recruiting and training.

It added that the driver shortage had been compounded by delays at the DVLA, "slowing down the paperwork we need before someone can drive for us".

A DVLA spokesperson said they were prioritising HGV and PCV provisional licence applications which were being issued in around two weeks.

They added: "More complex transactions, for example if medical investigations are needed as part of a driving licence application, may face longer delays.

"There are delays in processing paper applications due to recent industrial action and social distancing requirements, which means that we have fewer staff than usual on site."

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