Image may contain: Crowd, Person, People, Human

Warwick students are angry at Stagecoach for late buses and massive queues

£330 not so well spent…

| UPDATED

Over the past week Stagecoach have received huge amounts of criticism with regards to the Unirider buses that go between Leamington Spa and the Warwick University campus.

Matt Western, MP for Warwick & Leamington, posted the following photo on his Facebook page on Friday.

So who wants to split an Uber???

The queue clearly runs all the way from the Bus Interchange down to the entrance to the Arts Centre and the old book shop.

Stagecoach claim that the Unirider buses run "up to every 7-8 minutes" from Monday to Friday during the day time – but the photo shared by Matt Western suggests otherwise.

Matt Western posted the photo with the following message:

"This is an image of the queue at the University of Warwick campus for the Leamington bus at peak times this week.

"Many people are also reporting significant overcrowding on the buses. Combined with above inflation increase in bus pass prices, people are not getting value for money."

There have also been a number of tweets about the issue.

One Warwick University staff member claimed that Stagecoach need to "get a grip".

Another claimed to not have seen a bus in their area all day.

The Warwick Tab contacted Stagecoach and received the following comment on the matter:

"The capacity of a double deck is in the region of 90 people. When lectures/seminars end, you have a mass of people all arrive at the same time which generates the kind of queues shown in the image. We generally have a couple of buses on stand by at peak periods and the queues disappear incredibly quickly. The average wait time in the 1st week of term was 13 minutes and that will reduce further as term continues.

"There are sometimes exceptional circumstances and on Thursday 4th October there was a culmination of factors which resulted in one of the most problematic nights for us and students in many years. There was a major accident at the A452/Gallows Hill junction, near to Europa Way, a minor accident at the crossroads of B4115/A452 which blocked the road with queues back onto the A46 slip road. There was serve traffic congestion on Gibbet Hill between 16:00 & 17:30 with buses taking up to 40 minutes between the interchange and the A46. Then there were more delays caused by Jason Manford performing at the Arts Centre and heavy traffic through Leamington.

"Unfortunately these factors were outside of our control and while we tried our best to maintain a service we faced a very challenging situation. We would thank the students and staff for bearing with us during that period."