Fury at bus cancellations

By Jo Kennett

TWEED COAST residents are spitting chips because scheduled public buses they are relying on to get to work or TAFE are not turning up.

Pottsville’s Jodie Edmunds has a Danish exchange student staying who is supposed to attend Kingscliff TAFE, but four times in one week the bus scheduled to pick the student up at 8.12am from Overall Drive did not arrive.

“I am absolutely furious,” Jodie said.

“We aren’t notified and there is nothing on any of the websites to say they have been cancelled.

“We have nine international students waiting for the bus at Pottsville and then we’re scrambling around to pick them up and one of the other parents has to drive them to TAFE.

“We work and I can’t drive my student to school. It’s just horrendous.”

Jodie rang the Tweed Heads Kinetic depot to complain and was put through to Transport for NSW.

“Transport for NSW said they are turning up,” Jodie told The Weekly.

“Other parents were told Pottsville is not a priority and that they don’t have staff.

“We’ve heard that Lindisfarne students (who have to catch the public bus to school) are being left sitting at bus stops.

“It’s not just our students, it’s the young kids that need to work.”

Jodie said she had spoken to the English teacher at TAFE who said they had no idea about the problems with the bus.

“I’m sure there are a lot of teachers who have kids turning up late or not turning up at all from Pottsville,” she said. “The school hadn’t been notified that the 603 wasn’t running.

“The other day they were told they wouldn’t get a bus home until after 5pm when they asked another bus driver. They finish at 2.30 to 3.30pm so then we all started getting phone calls. One of the parents drove down from Banora and picked up some students, drove all the way to Pottsville, went back to Kingscliff and picked up his student and then drove all the way to Banora. He was an angel. We would have been lost without him.”

Jodie said that on Friday, February 10, students went to the beach after school and then tried to catch the bus home in non-peak times and the last two 603 buses that come an hour apart never showed.

“Students again were stranded and ended up couch surfing at other homestay parents in Kingscliff,” she said.

“I had to wait until 11 at least to drive as I had had dinner and wine.

“It is too late then as I would have got home at midnight to get up at 6am for work.

“Saying it’s peak time is untrue. I called the depot again on Sunday to ask if the buses were running and the only response was to look online like he had to.

“I replied online it says they are running when they are not.”

Other Tweed Coast residents went online asking if anyone knew what was going on as their buses hadn’t turned up either.

A spokesperson for Transport for NSW said they were in regular communication with Kinetic regarding service cancellations in the Tweed region.

“The primary cause of these cancellations is the current shortage of bus drivers, which is an issue for all of NSW,” the spokesperson told The Weekly.

“Kinetic is managing limited resources during peak hours by prioritising school