INDUSTRIAL action is taking place Oldham bus depot by First Manchester on Monday, January 10 and Tuesday, January 11 so no services will operate from there on either day.
This includes school services and the Yellow School Bus so parents and pupils across Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside are encouraged to plan ahead.
Where possible, arrangements have been made with alternative operators for other schools served by First Manchester. Any replacement services that run will display the usual bus service number.
Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has also been working with other operators to cover as many services as possible. However limited driver availability, due to covid-related staff shortages, means not all services can be.
In total 28 services will not run, affecting the following schools: Alder Community High School, Audenshaw, Bluecoat, Co-op Academy, Manchester Great Academy, Ashton
Kingsway Park, Longdendale High School, Mossley Hollins, Newman College, Oasis Academy, Oasis Leesbrook, Our Ladys RCHS, Radclyffe School, Royton & Crompton, St Cuthbert’s, St Damian’s and Waterhead Academy.
The Vantage V1 and V2 services based at a depot in Bolton for routes from Leigh and Atherton to Manchester Royal Infirmary are unaffected.
Ian Humphreys, Managing Director of First Manchester, said: “I would like to apologise sincerely to all our customers for the disruption and inconvenience this will cause.
“We have been holding extensive talks with union representatives and made every attempt to avoid industrial action, especially given the short notice this creates for our customers to make alternative travel arrangements.
“We are extremely disappointed that Unite the Union have chosen this course of action at a time when our efforts are focused on protecting jobs and maintaining services for the travelling public.”
First Manchester is continuing discussions with Unite representatives to resolve the dispute and prevent any further industrial action, which the union has notified is planned for later in January.
Dedicated travel information pages, containing full information about the services, are available on the TfGM website.
First Buses are useless and many people, myself included feel they’re probably more in the business of selling off, developing or otherwise cashing in their extensive property portfolio than in running bus services, certainly the regular bus service to and from Derker on which many elderly and disabled tenants were almost entirely dependent was discontinued some time to be replaced by a community bus service run by Stotts which runs ever hours, which is also being cut yet again and which, or so I’m told Stotts will not be be bidding to renew their contract for in April.
My own sympathies are entirely with drivers and staff.
And what about people who have bought “expensive” weekly passes and unable to use them for two days?
It has cost me £17 to get to work mon/tues, nearly the same cost of my weekly pass!!
hi we need the 184 and 180 back to Manchester please