PASSENGERS have abandoned bus services after months of waiting for severely delayed or cancelled buses in and around St Albans.

There were huge disruptions to Sovereign Buses throughout the county during a massive 12-week programme of roadworks in Hatfield Road, which was completed last month.

The company is now calling for an inquiry into the effects of the road closure, with the backing of St Albans District Council. It is also lobbying for earlier consultations between Hertfordshire County Council and bus companies before major roadworks are implemented in the future.

Sovereign has issued an apology to its customers but claims it was not given sufficient notification of the road closures to install contingency plans.

Journeys of less than a mile took up to 40 minutes while the project was undertaken. After losing thousands of pounds as passengers deserted its service, the company now fears more losses during a new roadwork scheme in the city over the next three months.

Thirteen sites in the district where maintenance and resurfacing work is due to be undertaken soon, causing further road closures, have been identified by the company.

Commercial director David Hurry said: "This will mean the temporary closures of certain bus routes, leaving some parts of the city without a bus service for perhaps a couple of days, unless special arrangements can be made."

"Replacement services could possibly be arranged but this would require the deployment of additional resources at additional cost. With the loss of income that Sovereign has suffered in recent weeks, we just cannot do that unless someone can come up with some money to pay for it."

The bus company is calling for imminent road closures in Stanhope Road, Cottonmill Lane and Holyrood Crescent to be put on hold until decisions about additional temporary bus services have been made.

Mr Hurry added: "We know that road maintenance is essential and we would campaign for it if it wasn't done, but we very strongly feel that insufficient thought was given to the effect of the disruption that the work in Hatfield Road would cause.

"Other measures to control the flow of traffic and to keep traffic moving needs to be put in place."

He also criticised the county council's decision to close the city centre end of Hatfield Road at the same time as the start of school term, to avoid disruption to the one-day St Albans carnival in August.

Sovereign bosses have met with St Albans MP Kerry Pollard and Iris Tarry, executive member for environment at Hertfordshire County Council, to discuss the roadwork issue.

A protocol for liason work before road schemes go ahead is to be raised by Councillor Malcom MacMillan, portfolio holder for transport, development and enterprise, at a Highways Partnership meeting on Thursday, November 8.

November 6, 2001 10:30