A SINGLE mum of two has berated Farnham’s unreliable bus services after growing tired of waiting in the rain for late buses with her young children.

Sarah Sellers, 42, lives with her two small children, aged two and three, in Sandy Hill and is studying to be a teacher at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in Farnham.

She relies on the bus services to attend college in Farnham and also to pick up her children from nursery.

However, she complains the services are often badly delayed or even cancelled without notice, even when roadworks and heavy traffic isn’t an obvious issue.

In one example, on Tuesday, January 31, Sarah said she went to catch the 4/5 bus home to Sandy Hill with her two children from her usual bus stop in Woolmead Road, five minutes before it was due at 3.57pm but it didn’t turn up.

She waited for an hour-and-a-half in the rain at an unsheltered bus stop with other stranded passengers, before giving up and paying for a taxi home.

On arriving home, she searched the internet to see what the problem was and saw Alma Lane, part of her bus route, was closed.

However, she claims there was no advance notice of disruption on the buses. She looked on Surrey County Council’s road and transport pages, but there was nothing on there either for Alma Lane.

Sarah said of the incident: “After waiting for over an hour, I thought ‘I’m going to get a cab. I’ve got my child benefit today and I have to get these kids home’.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened and there have been times I’ve been stuck at the bus stop for an hour. It seems to be a consistent problem.

“I rely on those buses; they take me to work, to university, to nursery, to the children’s father. And I’m travelling with my kids 99 per cent of the time.

“It’s just really difficult trying to rely on these things and I’ve been told off by my tutors in the past for arriving late.

“I even ended up getting pneumonia because I spent so long waiting out in the rain.

“It’s really hard. It’s excruciating and it’s quite soul destroying when we wait for these buses and they just don’t turn up and it’s so repetitive.

“I work at UCA - I’m doing teacher training there and I’m studying to hopefully teach students at the UCA, so it’s quite imperative that I’m on time.

“I would like to drive, but my circumstances won’t allow that at the moment and that’s why I’m trying to better my education so I can get a good job and put myself in a better position.”

Responding, Stagecoach South operations director Gordon Frost apologised to Ms Sellers’ for her negative experiences of Stagecoach services but questioned account of the delays on January 31.

Mr Frost said: "We are very sorry to hear of Ms Sellers’ difficulties and are deeply concerned that she had to wait so long for our service 4.

“Due to the Alma Lane road closure we have been forced to use a diversion route, but with the added volume of diverted traffic has caused delays to be longer than we had anticipated.

“We have traced the journey Ms Sellers was waiting for and found that ran its complete route although, due to the diversion, it was 12 minutes late by the time it arrived at Woolmead Road.

“On investigation, subsequent bus arrivals were between 15 and 25 minutes late, again all as a result of the Alma Lane diversion.

“We recognise that road works are essential but they can be very disruptive for our customers. Using our Real Time systems we try to minimise delays as much as possible and every effort is made to run all our services with the minimum delay.

“Service updates are regularly posted on our website and Twitter account and I would recommend customers follow us @stagecoachsouth on Twitter to obtain the very latest travel news.”