A LIST of significant problems have led to Worcestershire County Council withdrawing a number of school contracts from the town’s bus service provider, Diamond Bus.
The Rotala-owned company was issued a final warning in January, to improve their services or face losing their licence.
Speaking on Wednesday (February 17), Councillor John Smith (Cons, Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Highways) said County Council had completed a period of assessment where the operational performance of the company had been closely scrutinised and monitored.
As a result the provider has lost some of its contracted school services.
He added: “These observations have identified that over the time monitored, whilst there has been improvement in some areas, some significant problems remain.”
Outstanding concerns were listed as adherence to timetables, vehicle reliability, driver performance and communication issues.
“Whilst it is recognised that Diamond Bus continue to strive toward improved services,” Coun Smith added. “The County Council has taken the decision to withdraw a small number of contracts to provide Diamond Bus with the opportunity to concentrate resources and enhance their operational improvement programme.
“The Council will continue to monitor performance issues and looks forward to maintaining a positive relationship with Diamond Bus Ltd for the benefit of service users.”
Diamond Bus confirmed a decision had been reached to award three of its school services to an alternative provider.
“During a period of monitoring it was highlighted that some timetabling issues prevented the service from operating to given schedule times.
A spokesperson said: “The management team at Diamond Bus highlighted the problems and provided a solution to resolve them.
“Worcestershire County Council had agreed to provide a letter of support to enable Diamond to quickly implement these timetable changes from the start of the new term, however has since decided to place the contracts elsewhere.
“Diamond Bus have recently committed to providing considerable investment and further improvements into the Redditch area and are pleased that positive improvements in general have been recognised by Worcestershire County Council.
“Diamond Bus continues to operate a number of other contracted services on behalf of Worcestershire County Council and continues to work in partnership.”
