Chatteris: The town to be scrubbed from the bus route map

Across Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire 20 bus services are to be cut and others reduced. What do those living in a town about to be written off the public transport map altogether make of the changes?

The East Park Street bus stop in Chatteris is neither a wooden shack nor a pole sticking out of a verge.

It is a brick-built hut with two benches and a foundation stone that tells passers-by how it was "erected in 1951 to commemorate the Festival of Britain".

At present, four services call here. But on 30 October three of those are being cancelled and the fourth re-routed away from the Cambridgeshire town.

The loss of services in Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire is far from unique, warns the Bus Users charity.

The group's director for England, Dawn Badminton-Capps, says bus use across the country was declining before the Covid pandemic and has worsened since, especially amongst older passengers who had changed their travel habits or remained uneasy about public travel.

That, combined with driver shortages, rising costs for bus operators and increasing numbers of people either working from home have led to bus firms needing to reduce their costs, she says.

"We've been losing services for a long period of time," she says. "There's this perfect storm of everything going wrong and then we have fewer services as a result. We need a complete review of how public services are funded."

"Nobody's happy about it," says Richard Prior as he awaits the number 39 to Ely.

It is just after 09:00 BST and the morning rush is on.

"It's going to be a dead place, it's going to be a ghost town, isn't it, without the bus?" he says.

The 66-year-old and his wife Eileen are heading to the bank.

"I'd be lost, wouldn't I?" Mrs Prior says. "I've got to get my money out, pay the rent."

Listening in is Bill Iliffe, 67.

He is about to start a four-hour, three-bus change, journey to Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge.

He has a chronic cough that involves frequent trips to hospitals across the county, mostly by bus.

"I go to Addenbrooke's, Hinchingbrooke and Peterborough hospitals, so I rely on buses and they are dying out, which will screw me basically.

"It's hard enough getting an appointment. I've missed a few recently when the bus didn't turn up."

Without the bus service he says he will have to rely on patient transport services, which he's been reluctant to use as he feels they're for more needy passengers.

"I don't know how I would get to hospital because if there's no transport available, I'm scuppered," he adds.

It usually takes a minimum of 70 calendar days to cancel a bus route in England.

Under the Bus Services Act 2017, if an operator wants to cancel a route it has to tell the local authorities the route passes through and the regional Traffic Commissioner, who are responsible for registering local bus services.

The operator has to pre-notify the local authorities 28 days before it tells the commissioner and should inform them 42 days before it wants to end the service.

Stagecoach East have said the routes it is cancelling are no longer financially viable.

According to data seen by the BBC, the 39 - which passes through Chatteris - has been running at an annual loss of almost £275,000. It counted more than 5,000 passenger journeys in June 2022, but that was 85.5% of the amount carried in June 2019.

The V2 was said to be losing more than £415,000 annually and carried 1,240 passengers in June 2022, 57.5% of the 2019 levels.

About 11,000 people live in Chatteris, a Fenland town with no train link.

The town is surrounded by rich farmland and the largest employer is the manufacturer Metalcraft.

But when Stagecoach East, which runs the bus routes, introduces its new "sustainable" timetable next month, public transport will pass the town by.

Isabella, 17, steps off a bus and heads towards the town's Cromwell Community College, where she is studying A-Levels.

She relies on the bus to bring her in from a village in the Fens and was unaware of the timetable change.

She says she "doesn't have a clue" how she will get into school once the services stop. Losing the bus will hit her independence "massively".

"I'm learning to drive but I can't get a test because they're all booked up - the earliest test is January," she adds.

Across the road from the brick bus stop, another A-level student, 16-year-old Autumn, is waiting for the 39 service to take her back to March, a return journey she does each day.

She says there is a "really crammed" school bus she could take but that service only operates at the start and end of the day. Relying on that, she adds, would "reduce my freedom".

"It gives me my independence.

"Soon I'll be able to drive. But between me learning to drive and the bus stopping, I don't know how I'm going to be getting to school.

"My classmates don't know what to do either. The school says they're going to try to do something, but they can't really do much, can they?"

In all, Stagecoach East plans to cut 18 routes in Cambridgeshire and two in Bedfordshire, while others will operate less frequently and call at fewer places.

A smaller number of routes will be "enhanced", the company says.

Stagecoach's managing director Darren Roe says passenger numbers have fallen since the pandemic, meaning there are "tough decisions" to be made.

He says the company cannot "continue to operate services which we know are no longer financially viable".

Sitting on one of the benches, Pamela Morphew, 89, is waiting for the V2 bus service to visit her 98-year-old husband at Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon.

How does she feel?

"Very annoyed," she replies. "But what can we do about it? Only complain. We can't do anything about it can we?

"We'll be completely isolated because my husband did all the driving and he's nearly blind," she says.

"Without the bus we'll be stuck really, just relying on these few shops.

"They're good, but it's not the same as going to a supermarket, is it?"

The former Mayor of Chatteris James Carney is also waiting at the stop.

He used to drive the number 39 route for Stagecoach. He says when Chatteris Town Council heard of the cuts, the authority's members "were very, very concerned".

"Chatteris is quite an isolated town compared to other parts of Cambridgeshire," the 43-year-old says. "It's critical that places like Chatteris do have a bus service because we've got large parts of the population who don't have their own transport.

"All it's serving to do is increase the isolation factor."

Retired housekeeper Priscilla Prosser, 83, is heading to St Ives on the V2 route.

Asked how she is feeling, she says: "Not very good, but then, is anybody?"

What will the bus changes do to Chatteris?

"Well, it's killing it off, gradually.

"Unless you've got a car, you're not going to be able to get anywhere without a lot of problems.

"It's becoming a sort of bed and breakfast town. They're building and building, but not the services."

The Labour mayor who chairs Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority said the route cancellations are "unacceptable".

Nik Johnson has asked for the routes to be urgently re-tendered, with funding of £1.7m to support them until March 2023.

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