A LEADING York councillor has claimed bus operator First should be penalised for rising ticket prices, poor punctuality and the withdrawal of services.

Coun James Alexander, leader of the Labour group on City of York Council, has demanded the penalties for First in a letter to Tom Macartney, Traffic Commissioner for the North East.

He said the move followed his delivery of a petition about York bus services to 10 Downing Street earlier this year, and a letter he received back from the Department of Transport, saying it was concerned by punctuality statistics he provided “which appear to be well below the prescribed minimum standard.”

He claimed First York had increased bus fares eight times over the past seven years, with increases between 25 per cent and 100 per cent, and had also withdrawn set timetables from certain routes and reduced services on others.

Passenger satisfaction levels had fallen and “performance indicators” had shown less than 32 per cent of buses leaving the city in the morning left on time, he claimed. He wanted penalties so First would realise the importance of improving services.

But the company said it was “very disappointed by Coun Alexander’s use of wildly inaccurate data to try to make a case against First in York.’”

A spokesman said despite bad weather in early 2010, its ‘start’ punctuality figure for the York bus network stood at 94-96 per cent.

“The figures quoted by Councillor Alexander are allegedly from some council report some five years ago and the bus network has developed significantly since that date,” he said. “Furthermore the latest customer research carried out in York shows 83 per cent of customers were satisfied with their most recent journey on a First bus.”

He said the company had an “extremely strong and positive” working relationship with the council and was currently in negotiations to set up a new voluntary partnership to further improve services.

“We believe the Traffic Commissioner would want to rely on clear and accurate data, which we are more than happy to supply, to make his own views on how First runs its services in York.”