BUS company bosses have been accused of “becoming more ignorant of customer needs” after more changes to their Colchester services were introduced.

First Essex has shaken up its network in Colchester and north Essex, following significant alternations which came into force back in April.

The latest adjustments have resulted in changes to the number of early and evening journeys on some routes, while other services have also been shortened.

The Horkesley Heath to Brightlingsea bus will now terminate at the University of Essex during some off-peak and Saturday journeys.

The shuttle which transports passengers from Colchester city centre to the University of Essex’s Wivenhoe Park Campus has also been pulled from the timetable.

Among various other changes Route 86, which runs from Colchester to West Mersea, will also no longer serve Colchester Hospital, nor will the Colchester to Maldon bus.

Gazette:

Peter Kay, a passionate bus-user from Wivenhoe, has now hit out at First Essex over the revised programme of services and how it will impact passengers.

He said: “Despite claiming cuts are needed due to reduced income, they are happily wasting three buses all day running new routes to Monkwick and Horkesley Heath.

“The new cuts were claimed beforehand to be going to be just a bit of tidying up, but in fact they involve more big cuts on top of previous cuts.

“When go down to hourly all day then regular users start to disappear because the times involve too much waiting about in relation to their working hours.

“First Essex no longer reply to communications from anyone short of God and are, therefore, becoming ever more ignorant of customer needs.”

Mr Kay is particularly concerned by the extent to which the shake-up will impact students at the University of Essex.

“Last week I did a survey which showed some 650 people leaving the university towards the city centre between 4pm and 6.30pm,” he said.

“Now there are many fewer buses at this time so there will not be room to take all the passengers at peak times.

“I did another survey there and some people arriving at stops around 6pm were not able to get on a bus until 6.40pm - several of the buses were up to 40 minutes late.”

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Garry Nicholass, commercial director at First Essex, has now responded to Mr Kay's comments.

He said: “The network changes introduced in April were to meet the demands of people using our services as we moved out of covid restrictions and into the new world we are adapting to now, which is very different to what was in place pre pandemic.

“We constantly monitor our network of services and individual journeys throughout the day to ensure they are meeting the demands of our customers across the county, if required we may need to adjust a journey further for operational or changing customer travel pattern needs.

“We work closely with Essex County Council on all matters relating to bus provision, funding opportunities, roadside infrastructure, frequencies and simpler fares to improve the bus travel proposition.

“We fully understand the impact change can have on people relying on bus travel for their travel needs, but we also need services and individual journeys that are used less frequently to cover basic costs to be sustainable."