Two MPs have combined forces to bring the Arriva bus company to task over what they see as increasingly poor service.

Tracey Crouch, who represents Chatham and Aylesford, and Tom Tugendhat, MP for Tonbridge and Malling have jointly written to Arriva to call on them to improve their service across the area after both said they had received complaints from constituents.

Miss Crouch said: “Reliable and regular bus services are vitally important to residents and the standard of service provided by Arriva across a number of routes has fallen short of what passengers consider acceptable.

“Whether it be repeated issues with the No 155, and indeed the complete withdrawal of the evening service on this route, or the failure to provide reliable school bus services across the constituency, the number of complaints I am receiving is increasing.”

Miss Crouch said: “We have reached a point where action is urgently needed.”

Mr Tugendhat said: “In a rural community, many people rely on the bus service to get around.

“Sadly the frequency of delays has been increasing and reliability has been poor for a number of months now.

“In the past few weeks alone, I have received reports of many school buses into Tonbridge being late, while many of the buses which service West Malling, Kings Hill and other local villages are frequently cancelled or withdrawn.

“This is an increasingly serious problem and timetable changes are not the only answer.”

The MPs have asked Arriva fir a face-to-face meeting to sort out the problems.

Meanwhile the company unveiled its own plans to improve services at a public exhibition at the Hazlit Theatre in Maidstone at the weekend.

The exhibition was well attended by bus-users concerned about the future of their own services. There were some winners and some losers.

Peter Wiles from Grove Green had recently started a petition calling for better reliability on the No 19 route. He discovered that service was to disappear, but the good news was that it would be replaced by a new No 9 bus, that would go every 30 minutes - twice as frequently as at present.

However, instead of travelling straight into the town centre, it will loop round to pick up passengers from the Notcutts garden centre and the new medical campus en route.

Mr Wiles said he still intended to present his petition in April.

Linda Batten from Gallants Lane, East Farleigh, was dismayed over cuts to the No 89 service, which currently travels up Loose Road, along Heath Road to Coxheath, and on to Gallants Lane, terminating at Wilson Avenue.

She said: “They are proposing to stop the bus in Coxheath from April 2.

“We shall be completely cut off in Gallants Lane. I rely on the bus to get to my job in Maidstone and there are a number of children catch it with me every day to go to school.

“What will happen to us?”