TRANSPORT chiefs have criticised the poor level of services offered by bus operator First and plan to write to the Traffic Commissioner calling for swift action.

Members of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority have declared the current situation regarding services provided by the bus operator First as "intolerable."

The GMPTA agreed at a recent meeting to write to First Group chief executive Moir Lockhead to request an urgent meeting.

The criticism came after 200 passengers turned up at a local transport group meeting in Oldham to protest at the level and quality of services provided by First.

The Authority gave the under-fire bus operator 12 months to improve the situation -- but according to recent figures provided by bus station staff, together with passenger comments -- the situation has grown worse.

They plan to send this information to the Traffic Commissioner Beverley Bell and have asked if she could attend a future GMPTA meeting to set out what action she plans to take against First.

Chairman of the authority, Cllr Roger Jones, said: "The authority has been extremely concerned about the poor performance of First's services for some time now. We have been monitoring the situation closely and have been given repeated assurances that the situation would improve. We cannot continue to do nothing when the feeling amongst passengers is clearly so strong.

Bolton's representative on the GMPTA, Cllr Guy Harkin, said that services had improved in Bolton but insisted they still were "not good enough."

Cllr Harkin said: "Buses are not turning up, some people are on their final warning at work because they cannot get to work on time. The biggest crime is that some of their buses are running early. Running buses is not rocket science. First promised to improve the situation in December. It's now mid March and the situation has still not improved."

A further monitoring report will be presented to the GMPTA's network committee on Thursday.

Responding to the comments made by GMPTA, Barry Pybis, First's north west divisional managing director said: "In our regular discussions we've been consistently open and honest about the difficulties we've encountered both in the recruitment of drivers and, more recently, engineering staff. We've also been equally open and honest about the actions that we've taken to rectify the situation. We said we'd sort out the difficulties and we are doing. We're making solid and significant headway although, sadly, it is taking longer than we would like to see the improvements delivered on the street."

"This shows that we're not sitting on our hands, we have a lot of activity going on and our determination to improve service delivery is undiminished.

"We'll continue to work hard with our partners to ensure that customers see the benefits in the shortest possible time."