THE father of a 15-year-old schoolgirl has hit out at a bus company for allowing children to be left waiting at a bus stop outside her school in the dark, because there are not enough buses to take them home.

Steve Denne from Beacon Hill is claiming that his daughter is often left standing for over an hour waiting for another bus to get her home.

Mr Denne also claims that the problem results in children fighting to get on the bus, leaving the youngest and smallest children behind.

Because of the overcrowding he claims that on one occasion his daughter "had to share a seat on a 53-seater single-deck bus on which there were more than 30 other children standing.

Now he is also worried that when his younger daughter starts at the school next September she will face a similar problem.

"I pay for the ticket in advance, £130 a quarter. The clocks went back this week, and after a 45-minute journey home, my daughter won't get back until well after dark."

Mr Denne has repeatedly written to Stagecoach asking why the double-decker service now no longer runs.

"I feel like I'm being fobbed off, given the run around by people who are indifferent. I am banging my head against a brick wall," said an exasperated Mr Denne.

He was eventually told that a double-decker service would no long operate to avoid problems caused by the low Fosters Bridge near Haslemere railway station.

But Mr Denne, whose daughter is a pupil at All Hallows School in Farnham, claims to have seen a number 19 double-decker in the area at other times of the day.

"I was delighted to see a No 19 double-decker at the Hindhead lights on October 18 at about 6-30 am travelling from Haslemere towards Farnham and then presumably on to Aldershot," he said.

It was later on the same day he discovered that his daughter had returned home on the over-crowded single-decker bus.

Mr Denne had in the past been told by the company that the double-decker had been withdrawn because the depot had lost 15 such vehicles to another depo.

Andrew Dyer MD of Stagecoach told The Herald that now that the new policy was in place, no more double -deckers would run under Fosters Bridge. He said it was "very unfortunate" that the initial response was given by a manager who no longer works for the company.

"It didn't get us off to a good start," he continued. "Since we first spoke to Mr Denne, the issue has been shown to be slightly different."

"More than one No 19 single-decker bus does leave the school in the afternoon, but only one goes all the way to Haslemere.

"This is the first school term since the single-decker was introduced, and we've now got the problem that the Haslemere bus gets filled with people taking short trips," Mr Dyer explained.

"There is another bus for short-distance rides and so we will speak to the school to try to even up the loads and solve the problem. "

The decision to stop double-decker buses going under Fosters Bridge comes after the bridge was struck three times over the last 18 months .

"The problem is that the bridge is on a double bend so double-deckers have to go through the middle of road," said Andrew Dyer.

"We've spoken to Surrey County Council about making the bridge traffic-light controlled, but any form of control is a long way off.

"In the meantime we can't afford to put the safety of passengers at risk." He asked anyone who wants to get in touch with him to contact him by e-mail at [email protected]">[email protected]