Politicians should be getting the bus to see the kind of issues people are facing, passengers have said in the midst of a general election campaign, according to the BBC

Dawn Winward, a carer from Middlesbrough, has said that she would like to see politicians travelling by bus as ‘services are just a nightmare now’. ‘They should be doing it more just to see what we're doing. How hard and how annoying it can be when you just want to go from A to B. And the buses are the ones which let you down,’ she added. Her comments come as most of the major parties have pledged to invest more money on bus services if elected.

But BBC News figures show that more than 130 million fewer bus journeys were taken annually across Great Britain since the previous election in 2017. In addition, since June 2017 bus fares have increased by more than 10% across Great Britain, faster than the rate of inflation, according to Government figures.

Outside London, bus journeys have been falling, which has been blamed on rising fares and bus companies reducing services in a bid to cut costs.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said in England more than 40% of bus services received some form of public subsidy. But as council budgets have been cut, local authority spending on bus services outside of London has fallen by a third (£122 million) since 2010.

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The BBC - General Election 2019: 'Politicians should get the bus'