ONE of the bus companies which took over services in the county from First has admitted there have been teething problems.

But Yeomans Travel said these problems, which were due to staff shortages, have now been ironed out and they hope to return to a full timetable.

Yeomans and DRM buses took over the running of county services which were discontinued by First Midland on September 5.

Hereford City councillor for Hinton and Hunderton Laura Hall said many of her elderly residents had complained about the confusion surrounding the take-over.

She said: "Some of them have been waiting for a bus for an hour. A lot of people in my ward do rely on these services. If people get fed up and go elsewhere the demand isn't going to be there."

Ian Davies, operations manager at the Yeomans Travel Group, said: "Following the withdrawal of First buses from the Hereford area, Yeomans Travel is committed to ensuring the continuity of the local bus services.

"When we took these services on, as you may expect from such a large undertaking, there were bound to be some teething problems and operational issues.

"These did unfortunately happen but two weeks in and we hope to have ironed these things out.

"Some of the problems were down to staffing levels where we were let down by drivers who had been guaranteed jobs with us but failed to commit at the last minute, either by not adapting to the different operational aspect or by not coming at all. "During this time, we tried to operate all of our services but unfortunately, this was not always possible.

"In the past two weeks, we have now had chance to recruit some more staff and hopefully can return to operating a full timetable throughout the city."