(16 May 2022, 2:15 pm)Ambassador wrote I think I had a fairly positive view of Martijn when he came into GNE but I'm increasingly of the view he's a 'peacetime PM' as they say and absolutely not suited to the current challenging environment. He's tried and failed, let someone else have a go?
Usually I'd be first to blame him but I'm not sure whether it's him or someone above him that's the problem here.
GoAhead are seem to be going for a we want a profit approach now and will do anything to get a profit now. It seems the totally wrong approach to me and long term it's going to be devastating. Arriva and Stagecoach seem to be going for a longer approach and actually letting Covid end first before butchering everything. Whether Arriva and Stagecoach will make a profit this year (doubt it - who knows) but long term it's better and let the buses grow back so they can make a profit long term. Not to mention they didn't do a ridiculous policy of reducing fares which clearly didn't work and don't have the awkward position of fares need to be blatantly higher to make certain routes profitable but you can't do that because of the PR problems.
Right now cutting services and having half the services cancelled because there's no driver's long term seems a bizarre approach and won't get people back to using buses.
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Also to whoever was asking about areas without a service, unless you live on Durham Road there's no bus service anywhere in Birtley which is pathetic nor does Waldridge or Pelton Fell. You might aswell add Harlow Green aswell as an hourly service is too infrequent in urban areas.