ALTERNATE school bus services have had to be hurriedly put in place – after a major operator announced it would not be able to operate its contracts from today.

Stephensons of Easingwold told North Yorkshire County Council late on Friday it would not be in a position to fulfil its contracts from Monday.

The company operated school and local bus services under contract to the county council as well as a commercial bus network not subsidised by the authority.

But over the weekend the authority’s integrated passenger transport team had to work frantically to arrange alternative services.

They focussed on the 27 school transport contracts Stephensons provided for 900 pupils entitled to free school transport in the Ryedale, Harrogate and Hambleton districts.

Emergency arrangements to cover all of those school transport contracts using other operators have now been put in place.

The authority has not yet been able to secure replacement local bus services provided under contract to the council, but Transdev’s Coastliner will take over the 29 and 31x services from Easingwold and Helmsley to York, running to the same timetable from today.

Details of the arrangements are at northyorks.gov.uk/transportnews.

There will be a loss of service for passengers for a time on some routes until the council can undertake a tender exercise to attempt to secure replacements. Details of the services that will not be operating can also be found on the county council website.

The county’s executive member for transport, Cllr Don Mackenzie said: “We know how vital bus services are to people’s daily lives.

“For this reason, as soon as we were informed late Friday by Stephensons that they would cease operations from Monday morning, our staff have pulled out all the stops to get alternative providers to pick up the services as a matter of urgency.

“Our priority has been home to school routes so that families could be assured that their children would be able to go to school and continue their education as normal on Monday morning. In the event we have managed to secure cover for all 27 school contracts.”

Stephensons could not be contacted for comment