THE manager of Arriva buses in Darlington has said the company is providing a much better service to people in the town than when he took on the job two years ago.

John Rochford, who runs the Darlington bus depot, spoke at a Darlington Borough Council committee meeting alongside Arriva North East managing director Nick Knox to give members an update on the service.

Two years ago, Mr Rochford attended the same meeting and admitted that Arriva was not providing a good enough service to Darlington residents and pledged to act on a catalogue of complaints.

The pair presented statistics from a survey of passengers showing 93 per cent of people are now satisfied with Arriva services in Darlington, with 69 per cent of respondents saying they were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied.

Mr Rochford told members of the place scrutiny committee: “We came here in 2012 and we were honest, we were not delivering what customers expect and deserve.

“There was a different management team and structure before that time – I now sit on the town centre board and work much more closely with the council than my predecessors.

“I don’t come to work to let people down, I come to make things better. I want things to keep improving, I want people to have an exceptional service.”

Cleanliness and punctuality were major concerns raised in the 2012 briefing and Mr Rochford said the company had changed its cleaning contractor late last year after finding that the previous company were not reaching the standards required.

On the matter of punctuality and driver attitudes he added: “We are bringing back old values alongside new technologies. Any comment we receive from passengers – positive or negative – is acted on.

“We have GPS trackers on all buses and they are now showing 92 per cent of buses run on time, which is a significant improvement on the 82 per cent in 2013.”

Mr Knox admitted that when he took over Arriva North East in 2011, the Darlington depot was seen as the company’s “problem child” but that the depot topped the regional league table in 2014.

Councillors said they were pleased with the improvements to the service in Darlington and urged the company to continue its work in the town.