VALE residents aired their frustrations at a public meeting about an “unreliable” bus service which revealed startling revelations about the route.

Adventure Travel's 303/304 service is described as a “lifeline” for rural Vale residents, but the service has been beset by reliability issues.

At a public meeting, held at St Peters Church in Rhoose on October 10, angry Adventure Travel customers aired their grievances with company representatives who met face-to-face with the public.

One person described how people would love to leave their cars at home and use the bus, however, due to the reliability of the service, they can't do that.

Another described how college kids using the service were struggling to get to class.

One person described how a bus driver being trained on the service was missing stops because his instructor did not know the route.

In a farcical scene, one man strolled into the meeting over 30 minutes late – having relied on the 304 to attend.

Penarth Times: The unreliable 304 bus service goes to Barry, Rhoose and Llantwit MajorThe unreliable 304 bus service goes to Barry, Rhoose and Llantwit Major (Image: Newsquest)

Adventure Travel representative Lauryn Tunnell laid it bare with customers saying: “We can only run services if they are making money.”

And how do Adventure Travel determine this? One of the ways will be through looking at passenger data.

However, one wily member of the public pointed out data, particularly from Rhoose, is not accurate because people are not using the bus deliberately because they know the service is unreliable.

Penarth Times: A public meeting was held with MP Alun Cairns in attendenceA public meeting was held with MP Alun Cairns in attendence (Image: Newsquest)

Penarth Times: Andrea Williams struggling to make doctor's appointments because of the unreliability of the busAndrea Williams struggling to make doctor's appointments because of the unreliability of the bus (Image: Andrea Williams)

Grievances were many, and some quite specific – such as how close buses are allowed to get to the curb and can they reverse?

While Ms Tunnell endeavoured to take complaints back to the company and improve on them, this publication asked, as Adventure Travel look into altering the service to make it more reliable, will the meeting really help to satisfy all grievances?

A spokesperson for Adventure Travel said: “The meeting was useful in terms of better understanding some of the detailed experiences of customers who use the service.

“Ultimately, in terms of service reliability, the route has to be modified in some way to ensure it can operate reliably in the face of increasing traffic and decreasing speed limits.

“It will most likely be necessary to remove some small sections of route to give the remaining core service enough running time to reliably complete the journeys from end to end.”

Penarth Times: The public meeting was held at St Peters Church and Hub Café, RhooseThe public meeting was held at St Peters Church and Hub Café, Rhoose (Image: Newsquest)

MP Alun Cairns, who was also in attendance, said: “This was an important meeting to better understand the impact of bus changes and challenges on local residents.

“I am determined to ensure other improvements that were called for.

“Adventure Travel has shown a willingness to work with the community and I will continue to work on behalf of local residents to improve local services.”

Having trouble with the 303/304? Let us know by emailing harry.jamshidian@newsquest.co.uk.