A NATIONAL bus company has been accused of jeopardising the jobs of east Durham residents.

The criticism of Arriva buses followed the failure of eight buses to run from Peterlee on Monday, due to mechanical faults.

Angry at the repeated cancelled services county councillor Morris Nicholls, who represents the Thornley ward, hit out at the company saying it was using "clapped out" buses in the Peterlee area.

He told The Northern Echo: "The Arriva buses in Peterlee are so old that they keep breaking down.''

"Arriva don't buy new buses for Peterlee, other parts of the country may get new buses but Peterlee gets cast-offs."

He said his understanding was that when an Arriva bus had almost reached the end of its life it was brought to County Durham to run the services around Peterlee.

"People rely on these buses to get to work. When a bus doesn't turn up it means people are late for work and when this happens as often as it does with Arriva, these people are in danger of losing their jobs.''

Coun Nicholls said the Arriva services were now so poor that people could no longer rely on a service running, let alone on time

He added: "The problems of Monday morning are by no means an isolated incident, it is happening all the time.

"Surely the time has come for Arriva to address the issues of reliability and do something about its ageing and unreliable buses.''

Iain McInroy, operations director for Arriva North East, acknowledged that there had been problems with reliability of services caused by mechanical problems at Peterlee.

He said: "Our engineering team is working very hard to address these issues and to return reliability to the level our customers expect and we want to provide.

"In recent years, Arriva has made investments in both infrastructure and vehicles in Peterlee with one third of the buses operating from the depot now modern low-floor easy access vehicles.''

Mr McInroy said the company had also been in discussions with Coun Nicholls to offer assurances that the question of reliability was being addressed as a matter of urgency.

Anyone who has had problems is asked to contact Arriva on 08701 201088.