A DISABLED man who last year complained about broken wheelchair ramps on Darlington buses has been left stranded - because the lifts have still not been fixed.

Graham Hall wrote to Arriva last year to ask why the easy access ramps on its flagship number 21 service were not working.

He says he was left waiting for hours to get home from the town centre, as bus after bus stopped but had to leave without him because the ramps were out of use.

The experience put him off using public transport in Darlington, but when his wife was taken into hospital for a week recently, he tried the buses again only to find the problem had not been fixed.

"I complained about this in June last year and the situation hasn't improved at all," said Mr Hall, of Annandale, at Whinfield.

"All the number 21 buses are supposed to be disabled-friendly, but none of their ramps seem to work. One was even screwed down.

"The situation meant I could not visit my wife in hospital. I was waiting for ages to get home."

Eventually a bus driver parked the bus close to the kerb and got out to lift Mr Hall onboard.

"Really, I was lucky to get home at all," he said. "If the driver hadn't been so helpful, I would probably still be waiting."

He believes the company ignored his complaints last year.

"The first response I got was a generic letter about roadworks, and the next time I wrote they sent me a letter about traffic lights.

"Darlington's transport is supposed to be one of the best in the country. This is obviously not the case if you are disabled and can be left stranded for hours in the town centre."

An Arriva spokesman said yesterday: "We have never published anywhere that our services have guaranteed low floor easy access.

"It's something that we can't do at present on many buses, but we are hoping to correct that as soon as possible, and we are on target to make all our buses disabled friendly by 2015, in line with Government guidelines."