Extra buses laid on for Amazon Rugeley staff
Two new bus services are being launched to ferry hundreds of seasonal workers to and from the Amazon base in Staffordshire.
The routes will link several towns, picking up employees and other passengers in and around Wolverhampton, Cannock, Hednesford, Walsall, Bloxwich and Rugeley where the online retailer's large distribution centre is located.
The company announced last week that it was taking on 1,500 workers at the site in the build-up to Christmas.
It follows the launch of another bus service in the town to take shoppers from the bus station to the new Tesco supermarket which opened on Thursday.
The Amazon centre will be served by the A2 and the A3. However the buses have been contracted to run for four months and are unlikely to continue past January.
Arriva Midlands has set up the routes at the request of three recruitment agencies which are providing workers for Amazon.
Service A2 will run from Wolverhampton's Pipers Row to Willenhall, The Dale, New Invention, Essington Road, Cannock, opposite McDonalds on Church Street, Hednesford, Uxbridge Arms/Woody's then to Amazon on the Towers Business Park.
Service A3 will follow a route from Wednesbury, via the lay-by outside the bus station, Walsall, Hatherton Road, opposite the bus station, Bloxwich, Cannock Road, Cannock bus station stand 10, Cannock, opposite McDonalds on Church Street and on to Rugeley.
Buses will divert along Lichfield Road and Eastern Way between Church Street and East Cannock Road whilst the railway bridge is closed on Old Hednesford Road.
New timetable leaflets are available from Centro offices at Wolverhampton bus station and Walsall bus station.
Arriva spokesman Keith Myatt said: "The buses will both provide journeys to meet the employees' shift patterns at the Rugeley site of Amazon."
Positions have been created to cope with the seasonal period although some will become permanent.
