Abellio Greater Anglia have apologised after passengers waiting to board rail replacement buses at Newbury Park were delayed yesterday.

Andrew Hatton, from Tiptree, described the scenes at the rail station while waiting to board a bus to Witham as an “absolute shambles.”

He added it was not the staff at the station who were at fault, but there were not enough people there to cope with the number of travellers.

He added: “There were no signs so people did not know where they were going. Some children were becoming quite distressed.

“I got on the bus it was just just over half full but as we drove out there dozens and dozens of people there.”

He also said he had waited around half an hour just to board the bus.

A spokesman for Abellio Greater Anglia said: “We’re sorry some passengers experienced delays waiting for rail replacement bus services at Newbury Park yesterday, this was due to buses being caught up in unusually high volumes of local traffic.

“Bus services were running directly to three different destinations which departed as soon as all passengers for their chosen station were on board.”