Following the article in last week's Weekend Sun about the free bus from Welcome Bay for kids returning to school, we are part of that bus route but live on 11th Avenue and have children that attend Bethlehem College.

We arrived for our first journey at the bus stop, which is a 15 minute walk, but following a 20-minute wait we rang the Baybus 0800 number and were told that that service did not run as they did not have a driver.

I'm sure this affected many kids getting to school, not to mention their parents who in the end had to get in the cars and drop them off late.

When I asked how this is allowed to happen and how to avoid the same thing in future, I was told that I would have to ring to find out from operations whether the service was running. I'm not sure that is how a regular school bus service is supposed to work.

We had excellent bus services last year, but the reduced service goes against the desire to get more kids on buses. I've been on the phone to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council – they apologised and sounded as frustrated as I feel.

G Dufaur, Tauranga.