New Leek- Macclesfield bus service cancelled within days of starting

A new bus service which was set to run between Ashbourne and Manchester via Leek and Macclesfield has been cancelled after a matter of days.

When the service stated the 109 D&G bus service that ran between Leek and Macclesfield was withdrawn.

The X1 service started on Monday 6th of September 2021 run by transport company Hulleys of Baslow and is set to finish on Thursday the 9th with the company saying that a lack of drivers has caused the issue.

A spokesperson for Hulleys said

“Everything was ready to roll, the process of recruiting more Drivers continued while a small number had left. At the end of last week however, a number of Drivers expected to return to work from sickness absence indicated they wouldn’t be doing so. Other new Drivers who were expected to start this Monday informed us they no longer be joining, and another Driver fell ill.

All of this in just two days for any Operator would be challenging. For a small Operator such as Hulleys, with the best will in the world we were put in an impossible situation. We do not like letting people down and so we’re presented with two options: to try and run all services but cancel journeys at short notice as and when we were unable to cover them, or cut back our network to a level where we have sufficient staff to cover all journeys every day.

For the purposes of stability, we have decided to change our network. From this Thursday the X1 and X72 will not run.”

A number of regular passengers of the former 109 service have taken to social media to slam the new X1 service for lack of reliability.

A spokesperson for Hulleys added

“We now need to concentrate our efforts on recruiting staff and providing the best possible service we can, and for that reason we are unable to answer any queries about this here. Passengers intending to travel on the X1 should contact Staffordshire County Council on 03001118000 or email contactus@staffordshire.gov.uk”