A COMMUTER has been left stranded after buses home have been failing to arrive for more than a week.

Lesley Howells, who catches the 44 bus service into the city centre from Wildwood Drive, is appalled that both the 5.05pm and 5.50pm buses have not shown up.

After those two services, the 44 bus no longer serves Wildwood Drive and terminates at Crowngate bus station.

“It is not right. They are trying to encourage people to use the buses but the services aren’t even arriving," she said.

"Some people can't drive and rely on the buses to get to the hospital."

Mrs Howells, who lives near Sixways, has to catch a bus into the city and a second bus home and the disruption means it is taking more than 90 minutes to get home.

"Others are missing their trains because the bus isn't turning up and then they're left stranded having to wait ages for another train," she added.

"Some people just give up and walk to the hospital to get a bus.

"I know there are traffic problems but it doesn't mean the bus shouldn't be turning up at all.

"It's hard when you're working full time and then you're having to wait well over an hour just for the bus to arrive."

Sarah East, head of operations at First Worcester said: "We are aware that the 1705 and 1753 journeys on our route 44 from County hall have suffered reliability problems over the last few weeks.

"The disruption has mainly been due to excessive congestion, especially along the London Road corridor and with the roadworks that have been in place on New Road which has affected all journeys to and from Malvern.

"We work closely with council officers in Worcester and regularly discuss the problems we are experiencing with congestion, roadworks and other influences that are having a huge impact on the reliability of bus services in Worcester and across the wider area of Worcestershire.

“We will continue to monitor the journeys each day and may urgently propose some adjustments to the service when we have built up enough evidence to determine what needs to be changed to get the service back running reliably.

"I apologise to all customers who have had to endure the inconsistencies with the early evening journeys and I can assure people we will try and get a resolution to the problem as soon as possible."