A GROUP which campaigns for better bus services in Somerset has expressed outrage at a local bus being used in Swansea.
Somerset Bus Partnership allows for bus users across the county to make their thoughts heard about bus services.
The group took to X (formerly Twitter) to slam Buses of Somerset - part of First South - which operates buses in Taunton, Bridgwater, Minehead, and Yeovil.
Reacting to the photos of the green bus marked with 'Somerset' but displaying 'Swansea X11' on its digital display, a spokesperson for Somerset Bus Partnership said: "So that’s where your buses have been going Buses of Somerset.
"No wonder you don’t have any spare vehicles when breakdowns occur. Perhaps you should’ve kept these so you didn’t need to cancel so many services."
Straight from First "The Buses of Somerset" is one of First Cymru's latest acquisitions, E200 8.9m B28F 45111 YX58FRJ, seen in Carmarthen on the 1/3/23 on the 0915 X11 to Swansea via Burry Port and Llanelli etc. Also First Cymru legal lettering on a "First Leeds" 66 reg E400 MMC. pic.twitter.com/iNSzvFOqjn
— anamyd (@anamyd1) March 3, 2023
In response, a spokesperson for Buses of Somerset said: "Buses of Somerset has sufficient vehicles in place to operate its services.
"If any service disruption occurs, we always investigate the root cause to ensure that improvements can be put in place to avoid future instances.
"If that is as a result of vehicle shortages, we bring in extra vehicles to support our services which we have recently done in Somerset.
“In terms of the bus now with our Cmyru business, this was moved 15 months ago.
"First Bus moves vehicles around across its UK wide fleet to ensure vehicles are utilised for their entire life cycle, which is standard practice across the bus industry.
"When we invest in new vehicles, we then replace the oldest vehicles in our fleet – which could be anywhere in the UK.
"This cascade ensures that buses go to where they are needed most.”
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