OUR story about passengers’ major disappointment with the Diamond Buses service in Bolton provoked a big response online.

Readers were quick to share their own experience of the company which took over Bolton bus services from First Bus in August.

Here’s what they said:

The 575 from Heaton to the interchange is a miserable journey. No bus shelter near Greenmount Lane and you could wait 20 mins then 3 turn up at once. You can’t say anything to the driver for fear of hostility. Not that cheap either.

Owfener

This is a company who cannot even ensure that the first 8 service from Bolton Interchange to Manchester on a Sunday morning leaves Bolton on time.

The service is timetabled to leave the Interchange at 0634 however it is normal for the bus not to have arrived at the stand by then and more often than not departs between 0640 and 0645.

However on one occasion it left at 0650 and the worst was 0655. No reason given by the drivers and complaints to Diamond bring either no response or replies which do not address the issue.

William2701

My mrs uses Diamond to get home from work and there service is poor, she waited over an hour in Walkden for a bus in the freezing conditions a week or so ago. Then not one bus turned up but four on the bounce. How the hell does that work? If Diamond can’t provide a service they should not have the contract!

bolton red devil

471 either way was dire when first ran the service. Now you can wait upwards of an hour at peak times from bury back to Bolton when they are supposed to be every 10

Minutes.

In that time you see regular 524 buses arrive and leave on time. Try Twitter? No response, try calling Diamond? Don’t answer, try emailing the so called service email address? Same response, zilch.

They can’t keep using the excuse of no staff when they neglect their customers. Kick em out.

houghbong

471 route has always been shocking... The service travels far too many places to be reliable.

andy_88

“As a result, Diamond say they were left 60 drivers short and have spent the intervening months trying to employ new staff to fill these vacancies”.

No, Diamond knew full well they would be short of drivers but thought they would get away with it if they gave everything a coat of paint. Typical co-corporate money saving, they saw £££££ signs saving on staff wages. Has anyone thought of asking Northern Fail to help out, they seem to have a handle on time keeping and good service.

Wasn’t it the other week when the bus operators were up in arms about re-regulating bus services? Just how many millions of pounds would they like passengers & taxpayers have to pour into this bottomless pit of rip off bus companies.

As a face saving exercise they will start pushing leaflets through the door telling anyone who’s daft enough to listen that “Diamond Bus are Your Local Bus Company” ???? errrrr, no offence but Brum is a bit more than a few miles from Bolton.

No, the sooner the bus companies are brought to heel or kicked out the better, this has been going on long enough, time to take back control. Bolton buses for Bolton people.

JLK Bolton

Caught the 501 the other day - “return please to town centre says I - driver says - no return mate, £2 each way or £5 day ticket”. Nip down the road - Stagecoach - 126 - £2 return. Think that makes the journey % 100 cheaper. Made up for it though in a beautiful clean recently registered bus.

Jimmyoh

You did well getting a £2 quote from Diamond, they charge me £2.70 for that journey! Mind you I use their app nowadays to save money where a day ticket is £4.80 or a single £2 regardless of distance.

jimiley

Without a doubt 507 is the worst service of them all, every day you don’t know if a bus is coming or not, some people will say well you all have cars in Harwood, well that is not true, and on a Saturday night it’s worse there’s two or three young nurses who work at the hospital at night and don’t know if the bus will turn up or not.

Jamesbwfc

There are plenty of jobs going at Diamond in Bolton. The pay and conditions are good so what are the out of work Boltonians doing, they should be getting down to the depot and asking for a job. The bus services went improve until these vacancies are filled.

Breightmet kid