Shrewsbury hospital stops 'cannot be justified' due to high costs, claims bus director

Arriva stopped picking up and dropping off patients at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital treatment centre in April – now only serving the outpatients stop.

Councillor Alex Wagner pleaded for the service to be returned after several vulnerable residents raised concerns.

But Simon Mathieson, the transport firm’s area operations director, said passenger number have dropped by around a third since pre-pandemic levels, and servicing the route would cost £150,000 a year – a cost which “cannot be justified”.

Councillor Wagner, who represents Bowbrook, said to Mr Mathieson: “I have several residents who rely on the link to get to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital treatment centre. The service used to go around Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and drop off at key locations. The recent change has stopped it doing this. This is of grave concern to a lot of quite vulnerable and elderly people.

“One household in my division have no car and are an elderly couple, one of whom is blind and has poor range for walking. Reaching the treatment centre has now become a significantly longer walk in a busy hospital setting. I would really strongly urge you to consider reversing this particular change, which would not be difficult (maybe adding 120 seconds to the journey), and with immediacy. Lots of people are struggling to access vital healthcare because of it.”

In response, Mr Mathieson said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has had a clear effect on bus travel over the past 24 months with fewer passengers using the bus less often, with the greatest decline in passengers being concessionary travel.

“Although we are seeing evidence of passenger recovery in Shropshire, we are carrying around 65-70 per cent of the passengers we were carrying on our services pre-pandemic.

“Government support has helped to cover our losses, but the amount we are receiving is insufficient to fully cover our operating costs. We constantly review and re-shape our bus networks across all of our depots to ensure our business remains sustainable and in a strong position for future growth.

“Bus operators and local transport authorities have been asked to review and reshape their bus networks to make them sustainable for when all government funding ends at the beginning of October this year.

“Back in April of this year, Arriva made several changes to services serving Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. These proposals were discussed with Shropshire Council.

“On Mondays to Fridays, buses run every 20 minutes and no longer serve the treatment centre bus stop at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

“On average, 11 passengers per day boarded our services at the treatment centre bus stop compared to 87 passengers per day at outpatients. The cost of providing an additional bus to serve the treatment centre bus stop is around £150,000 per annum and cannot be justified. On Saturdays, buses run every 30 minutes during the day to outpatients with patronage on Saturdays around 63 per cent of that carried on Mondays to Fridays.

“The impact of Covid-19 has also been felt in the vocational driver recruitment and retention space.

“We, along with other operators nationally, have seen unprecedented levels of attrition as staff pursue alternative forms of employment. We are working hard to build on our employment offer so that we can seek to retain our existing team members and attract new workers to the industry.

“Regrettably, whilst we are seeing new entrants to the business, we are still offsetting leavers – and this is having an impact on service delivery, with all hands on deck to minimise disruption to service.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers and hope to work with you and other stakeholders to build on the bus network in Shrewsbury..”