A DALRY commuter has accused Stagecoach of having such poor conditions on their buses that he is suffering health problems and has blasted the company for not providing enough seats after he was allegedly turned away and forced to wait 40 minutes for another bus.

Jamie Findlay said that he is at his “wit’s end” because he and his wife Lauren have had to endure cold and cramped conditions on their daily commute to and from Glasgow.

Jamie, who works in the civil service, told the Herald: “It’s been the bane of my life for the last year-and-a-half. I am at my wits end with the Stagecoach Bus service from Dalry to Glasgow. The buses are shocking, sub-standard, uncomfortable, cold and the prices continue to rise.

“You wouldn’t mind travelling for two hours if you were comfortable but when you’ve got no space, it’s not acceptable. The seating has no padding and after a short time your back gets sore and you get cramps. I’m a six-foot guy, so to be crammed into seats that have virtually no padding on them and no space in front is really not ideal.

“My wife has lower back pain which has started bothering her every time she is on the bus and I have burning in the backs of my legs due to the fact the blood is being cut off.

“I honestly wouldn’t use these buses for school kids, let alone full-paying adults travelling two hours a day on them to and from Glasgow. Not only that, on more than one occasion now at peak time, my wife and I have been turned away from getting on the bus due to there not being any seats left. So clearly stagecoach don’t cater for passenger numbers either. We’ve had to wait 40 minutes until the next one.”

Jamie and Lauren pay just over £118 each to get the X34 or X36 service five days a week every month. He said: “For that kind of money I would expect comfort and heat. It really isn’t too much to ask. It’s a deplorable service for the money you’re paying. It’s really poor.”

Jamie said he had complained to Stagecoach Enquiries “at least four times” and that he had also contacted the firm’s headquarters, but claimed that neither department have given him a response.

He added: “The most galling thing is that Stagecoach have decided that they won’t respond to customer complaints and feedback. It’s not just me, there are a lot of people in the same boat as me. I speak to other travellers every day at the bus stop and they have all been complaining and have not even been given the satisfaction of a response.”

Jamie accused Stagecoach of providing a better service for passengers in the rest of Ayrshire, while ignoring North Ayrshire customers. He said: “I look at the buses that Kilmarnock and Ayr get, the X76 and X77. These are luxury buses. They are large, spacious, with comfortable leather seats and yet North Ayrshire get stuck with the rubbish. Why don’t we have these ‘juniper buses’ or whatever Stagecoach call the ‘luxury fleet’? It seems to me North Ayrshire have to take the scraps of what Kilmarnock and Ayr disregard.”

Jamie said that if the conditions on the Dalry to Glasgow bus do not improve then he and Lauren will have to consider the train, which will cost them both an extra £22 for a monthly ticket each.

Jamie said: “For us to get the train it would cost us £140 a month. My work have looked into it, which is really good of them and they’re going to pay my train ticket upfront and then deduct it from my wages. It’s not ideal but it’s the only thing we can do.”

When the Herald informed Stagecoach of Jamie’s complaints, a spokeswoman said: “We welcome feedback from our customers and always aim to respond to all customer correspondence. We are sorry to hear Mr Findlay’s comments. We work hard to deliver a large number of routes across Ayrshire and manage our resources in a way that meet the needs of as many customers as possible.

“Our North Ayrshire Express services provide a vital link to Glasgow City Centre and offer departures up to every 30 minutes during the day between Dalry and Glasgow, Monday to Saturday and hourly on Sundays.

Our 28-day Dalry to Glasgow Megarider ticket offers unlimited travel between Dalry and Glasgow for around £4 per day. To further improve the service, we are planning to add extra capacity to the route this spring.”