Transport boss's £150,000 cost claim 'ridiculous', says leader after Shrewsbury hospital stop scrapped
Claims that re-instating a bus stop at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital would cost £150,000 a year are "palpably ridiculous", says a councillor.
Arriva stopped picking up and dropping of patients at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital's treatment centre in April as part of a series of cuts, sparking "grave concern" in the community.
A boss from the transport firm said the extra cost of servicing the centre "cannot be justified".
The outpatients bus stop is now the only one where patients are picked up and dropped off at the hospital.
Bowbrook councillor Alex Wagner has again written to Arriva, pleading for the stop to be brought back into use.
He told the Shropshire Star: “It is a palpably ridiculous claim that adding a bus stop and 0.6 miles of travel could cost anywhere near £150,000. If anything, the route could even make a profit. I am keen to hear back from Arriva so they can explain themselves and work with me to get the treatment centre stop back in operation ASAP.”
In his letter to Arriva's regional director Simon Mathieson, Mr Wagner wrote: "I am not arguing for a whole new service to go to the treatment centre. I am asking if the #11 can stop off at the centre. Can you please provide a costing for how this additional three minutes to every #11 journey could possibly cost £150,000?
"Please could this change be looked at, to re-implement the treatment centre stop. 11 passengers per day is over 250 per month, largely elderly and vulnerable, heading to the hospital treatment centre. It is not a long route or an expensive stop, but matters a lot to people in the unenviable position of relying on public transport to get to hospital appointments."
In an earlier letter to Mr Wagner, Mr Mathieson said passenger numbers were down by around a third since pre-Covid days.
He said: "On average, 11 passengers per day boarded our services at the treatment centre bus stop compared to 87 passengers per day at outpatients. The cost of providing an additional bus to serve the treatment centre bus stop is around £150,000 per annum and cannot be justified. On Saturdays, buses run every 30 minutes during the day to outpatients with patronage on Saturdays around 63 per cent of that carried on Mondays to Fridays.
“Although we are seeing evidence of passenger recovery in Shropshire, we are carrying around 65-70 per cent of the passengers we were carrying on our services pre-pandemic.
"Government support has helped to cover our losses, but the amount we are receiving is insufficient to fully cover our operating costs. We constantly review and re-shape our bus networks across all of our depots to ensure our business remains sustainable
"We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers and hope to work with you and other stakeholders to build on the bus network in Shrewsbury."
