Bus users across Kent say they feel “trapped” in their own towns after one of the county’s biggest operators cancelled 4,000 journeys in a single month.

The scale of the issue currently facing Stagecoach has been branded a “safeguarding issue” by parents who worry their children will be left stranded in the dark after school.

Meanwhile, others who count on the company to get them to work say they have lost their independence as they are forced to rely on lifts in cars.

KentOnline columnist Rhys Griffiths, who regularly takes the bus, says the service has become “more of an aspiration than a promise”.

Stagecoach, which runs 81,000 bus journeys per month across Kent, has confirmed almost 5% of services have been cancelled since September 11, with bosses blaming a “driver vacancy gap”.

This means 4,000 journeys in total have been axed during this period – about 142 a day.

It comes after KentOnline revealed as many as 50 drivers left the company after the closure of one of its depots in the county.

Fed-up residents say the shocking amount of cancellations is “unacceptable”.

Vikki Kimber, who lives in Lydd, says the service has been “horrendous” since the beginning of September.

Her son Daniel has Down’s syndrome and the cancellations are hindering his ability to “be independent”.

“The buses are being cancelled so often we keep having to go and pick our son up and take him to and from work,” she said.

“Sometimes we are only given half-an-hour's notice on whether there is a delay or cancellation.

"We as a family feel trapped living in Lydd with the service as it is.”

Daniel now lives in assisted living in St Mary’s Bay and uses the bus to travel to his job in Lydd.

But Ms Kimber says Stagecoach's “unreliability” is an added stress to his day-to-day life.

She added: “Because of our son's disability, we have to safeguard him. The bus situation makes it very difficult to keep track.

“He now lives in an assisted-living home and sometimes staff have had to run him to work.

“We want our son to be more independent and this is something he really worries about now. It's making his journey to become more independent a lot more tricky.”

“The buses around the Romney Marsh are hideous...”

Ms Kimber says her mother, who is in her 80s, is also now terrified of being stranded.

“We need more clarity on the Stagecoach website. The buses around the Romney Marsh are hideous as it is,” she said.

“My mother is in her 80s and she used to love taking the bus. She now has a big fear of being stuck in the middle of nowhere and having no way of getting back home.”

The Kimber family are not alone in their struggles.

Kaytie Smith, who lives in Aycliffe, Dover, says she “fears for the safety of her daughter” after she was “left stranded” in town on her way home from school.

The 46-year-old pays £460 for her daughter's yearly bus pass, but feels they are “not getting half the use out of”.

“My daughter is in Year 7 and has just started school at Astor in Dover,” she said.

“We have hardly had a week since she started school that has not been interrupted.

“She is only 11 years old and has to wait in town on her own, or I have to leave work early to go and pick her up.”

The development manager says the family rely on the bus system to get her daughter to and from school.

As the evenings get shorter, Ms Smith believes the cancellations are becoming a “safeguarding issue”.

She added: “For the last four weeks she has not been able to get home from town after school.

“The nights are starting to draw in and it is not safe for an 11-year-old to be hanging around town at night-time. This is a safeguarding issue.”

Lisa Jacobs, who lives in Dymchurch, says she has struggled with bus services on her trips to work in Canterbury.

Ms Jacobs is epileptic, and following a seizure earlier this year was forced to surrender her driving licence.

“I am worried about becoming stranded...”

"I am currently off work due to a broken ankle,” she said.

"When I return to my job, I am worried about becoming stranded.

"I used the service before and after the cuts. This is now an extra thing to worry about on my journeys to and from work."

In June, Stagecoach announced plans to shut one of its depots in Kent Road in Cheriton, Folkestone, ahead of axing services in the area.

This resulted in dozens of staff – including many drivers – leaving the bus company.

District councillor for Sandgate and West Folkestone Tim Prater says “more needs to be done” to improve the service in the area.

The Lib Dem confirmed there was a meeting between the council and the joint transport board a few weeks ago to discuss the issues.

“There are still a huge number of cancellations daily,” he said, adding that the 102, which runs from Dover along the coast through Folkestone and Hythe to Lydd, is disproportionately affected.

“Why they are picking on that route I don't know,” Cllr Prater said.

"We have asked Stagecoach 'you said it was going to improve, when will this be?'

"We have also asked if the training [of new drivers] is still going on and if they have lost any more drivers.”

Cllr Prater says you “can't trust” the Stagecoach timetable.

“This is the worst thing for a bus service,” he said.

“Stagecoach wants people to use the service but can't give them confidence their buses will run.

"The leader of the council, Jim Martin, is in touch with Stagecoach daily.

"They have reinstated the service to Lympne, which will restart in a few weeks, which is positive, but there is more to be done."

Following the disruption over the last couple of months, some people have decided to take matters into their own hands.

“We expect a big improvement in the situation before the end of the year...”

A petition set up by Alex Shorey, called "Stop all the bus cancellations and reinstate vital bus routes", currently has more than 700 signatures.

Stagecoach bosses say they are “working flat-out” to resolve the issues with cancellations.

A spokesperson said: “We currently have a driver vacancy gap in Kent, and we are having to cancel some bus journeys as a result. That's obviously something we're really unhappy to have to do and we appreciate how frustrating it is for our customers.

"Our teams are working flat-out to resolve the situation. The approach we're taking is three-fold: redistribution of drivers from other areas, relentless recruitment, and temporary use of agency support.

"Despite the best efforts of our local teams, there are some days where we can't cover every journey.”

Stagecoach says when it does have to cancel buses, it aims to update its app and advertise details on social media.

The spokesman added: "We now have over 50 new colleagues at various stages in our driver training process and a good number in the recruitment pipeline. This means we're able to phase in new drivers all the time, and we expect a big improvement in the situation before the end of the year.

"We operate nearly 5,000 bus trips every day across the region, so the cancellations represent a small fraction of our scheduled services. Nonetheless, we appreciate how disruptive it can be when a bus service is missing and we're very sorry to all our customers who have been affected."