We know that Derbyshire Community Transport (DCT) have been experiencing reliability and service issues with the 140 / 141 / 142 / 143 bus services, which run around the Alfreton, Crich, Holloway, Matlock, Tansley, and Wessington area, and that this has sadly been impacting on passengers particularly recently.
As a result, our public transport team have been working with the operator, Derbyshire Community Transport, to discuss the issues and the best way forward.
Following discussions, it has now been agreed that Derbyshire Community Transport are no longer able to run the 140 / 141 / 142 / 143 services and so they will be giving up the contract to run the service.
We are aware that Derbyshire Community Transport have had some issues with the vehicles they bought to run these services, and reliability has been an issue. This is a service that is fully funded by the county council, currently through the Bus Service Improvement Plan.
In the interim, while all options are assessed, Derbyshire Community Transport have agreed to continue to run the services, and are being supported by vehicles from another local operator, until we can find another operator who has the capacity to take these routes on. We are working on this urgently as we know that this service is important for people in these more rural areas, and are doing all we can to find a new operator.
Derbyshire Community Transport will continue to operate the 147 / 148 routes and believe this decision on the 140 / 141 / 142 / 143 services will help them to ensure these routes return to greater reliability in the future.