Buses Are Wrong Size For New Bus Stop

A bus stop outside a hospital in Stoke on Trent can no longer being used - because it presents a danger to the public.
Health and safety experts have said that the bus stop can't be used safely because the road layout caters for the wrong size of bus.

Despite its convenience – it was built but a few feet from the main entrance to Haywood Hospital in Burslem - the stop and its shelters are now off-limits to traditional buses because drivers were putting pedestrians at risk by having to reverse into the stop.

One patient described the situation as 'almost laughable'.

“A bus stop with no buses is up there with a pub with no beer – totally pointless,” he said.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case, the bus stop and shelter were moved to just outside the main entrance so that patients and visitors wouldn't have to struggle across the sloping site from the next nearest bus stop 400 yards away.

A £36 million revamp of the hospital two years ago seemed to offer the opportnity to make things better for passengers, so the new bus stop and shelter was introduced.

At the time, the hospital was served by mini-buses operated by Wardle Transport – but then they introduced bigger single-deckers which couldn't pull up at the bus stop without reversing. And they couldn't do that without causing a danger to pedestrians.

Now local NHS officials are pleading with ther bus companies to use smaller buses again so they can re-introduce the half-hourly hospital service.

Wardle Transport, however, told their local paper "We have no plans to change local bus services there at this stage."

Oh, dear....