Chambers Buses has apologised to passengers after being deluged with complaints about poor service.

The company operates services in and around Sudbury but in recent weeks has come under fire.

Passengers and parents of schoolchildren using services have complained in Facebook forums over reliability issues.

Some parents of pupils at Thomas Gainsborough School at Great Cornard, near Sudbury, said buses had not turned up on the first day of GCSEs on Monday May 13, resulting in a frantic rush to get them there on time.

Other passengers have complained that other services have either been late, failed to stop or not turned up at all.

One passenger, Jess Mitchell, of Sudbury, said on Facebook how she had been in Bury St Edmunds waiting 30 minutes for her bus and when it arrived the driver failed to stop.

She said she ended up getting a taxi because she did not feel comfortable walking in the dark on her own.

"It was pitch black on a country road, I was by myself and my phone battery was dying," she said.

"It's not the fact I had already paid for the ticket but the fact the bus driver made eye contact with me but kept driving."

Now, the company has issued an apology to passengers and parents of pupils.

In a statement, Chambers managing director Jeremy Cooper said: "We deeply regret the inconvenience to our customers caused by recent exceptional staff sickness, which has resulted in the cancellation of a number of crucial journeys.

"We have now arranged to borrow staff and have a number of new members of staff starting as planned to supplement our on-going recruitment and training programme. "As a parent of secondary school children myself I am fully aware of the problems caused by unreliable school buses.

"We are committed to providing the service standards our customers expect"

Chambers operates 14 bus services around west Suffolk and north Essex centred predominantly on the Sudbury area.

It is a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead bus group having been bought in 2012.

Previously it had operated as an independent coach and bus company in the Sudbury area since 1918.