Several residents have contacted me about the current H Bus service. Residents were pleased the service had returned but have raised concerns about the reliability of the current service and also expressed a desire for a service after 8pm and a Sunday service.

I have therefore been in correspondence with Stagecoach and today received the email below. I was pleased to hear the response from the Head of the Commercial team.

I will continue to liaise with Stagecoach and please do get back in touch with any further feedback.

Dear Cllr Mitchell,

Thank you for your email. Firstly, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by our services.

Unfortunately, there have been a number of last-minute cancelled and delayed services recently due to operational issues as a result of staff shortages. We know that this has a knock-on effect on our services and to our customers, which we again apologise for. We hope, however, that in the coming weeks this situation will improve. The feedback provided will be passed on in the meantime to our depot management team for them to investigate this service further. Please be assured that our management teams are working their hardest to serve all routes based on the resources available. We do hope that constraints will be eased in the coming few weeks, as we have a number of new drivers who will be out on the road.

Also a reply for our head of commercial team

I have asked the team to see if there is scope to extend evening and Sunday journeys. This will primarily be down to whether this can be done with existing resource or not.

We will keep a regular eye on demand for West Garth Road and where we can improve the service over the coming months, we will do so.

Please see updates on website regarding current service disruption, https://www.stagecoachbus.com/service-updates/serviceupdatesarticle?SituationId=ID-24/08/2021-17:43:03:382

ServiceUpdatesArticle www.stagecoachbus.com

Kind regards,

Mark

Customer Service Adviser

Matford Park Depot

Exeter Customer Service Team

Stagecoach South West

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