Huge drop in passengers taking bus journeys in Herefordshire

Passengers are making hundreds of thousands fewer journeys on Herefordshire's buses, figures from the Department for Transport show.

Across the country, fewer bus journeys are being made compared to eight years ago, as campaigners say that unreliable service and rising fares are making an impact.

The data shows that passengers in Herefordshire took a combined 2.5 million bus journeys in 2016-17.

This is 620,000 fewer than in 2009-10, when the figures were first recorded.

But Herefordshire bucked the trend for the West Midlands as a whole, with 17% more journeys made across the region.

Dawn Badminton, the England director of Bus Users UK, said that local authority funding cuts have led to many subsidised routes being stopped.
She said: "Local authorities have had to take some really tough decisions.

"Withdrawing that money means that we have lost services, usually in areas where ridership is not high, such as in rural communities.

"I don't think we will ever get back to the levels of service we have had previously."