Stagecoach's Thanet customers were left confused and angry as no less than three diversions cut off stops across the isle with no indication of which roads were being services or where the buses would be going.

The three diversions are in St Lawrence, Ramsgate; Dumpton Park, Ramsgate; and Northdown Road Cliftonville. However there is almost no indication that stops are out of service or that routes have been changed. Buses display no signs alerting passengers and bus stops not in use still calmly reassure passengers of the arrival time of the next few buses.

The result has been confusion, delay and aggravation for both passengers and drivers. But this impacts not just on those of us choosing not to use a car. All of Thanet is hurt by this lack of communication.

Yesterday I took a number of trips on a selection of Loop buses. What I found shocked me even with my low expectations of the service.

There was confusion as to what bus stops were serviced where one could catch a bus. Even asking local shops and passers-by yielded no information. The first big clue was often when the approaching bus would suddenly take a right and vanish from sight.

My test journey yesterday took in Tesco Metro in Cliftonville, Westwood Cross and Dumpton Park. At the start of this trip I was unaware of any disruption but by the end I was well educated in just how badly things had gotten.

To be sure to catch a bus outside the Tesco Metro I had to hike up the road to the past Pinkies to the next stop. Fine for me but many elderly people use the busses and might not be able to walk that far. When I did catch the bus I noticed that it took a left just before the Tesco and then did not stop untill it has returned to the Northdown road route.

Later, after meeting friends I took another bus to Dumpton Park. Having just missed the Bus at Westwood Cross we walked to the Bus Depot and here we learned that one bus in each direction had broken down. Further confusion was caused by the lateness (not advertised on the digital display) that meant that the Loop bus that appeared to be the one that went all the way round was actually one that terminated at Ramsgate harbour.

This bus took some more diversions which resulted in passenger tension when the drivers announcement could not be heard and his tension got the better of him. The result was silence of the not-so-good kind.

In the end we jumped off the bus at the viaduct and walked up to Dumpton Park from there. Later (after a few DVDs) I took the bus from Dumpton to Cliftonville and once more discovered that things were not good. After a short wait two ladies pushing a pram arrived at my stop and said that they had been told that due to resurfacing works a diversion was in place. They had been waiting an hour and a half.

Not long after that a bus approached only to swing a right and disappear. In total there were now five adults waiting outside the greyhound pub and we soon all gave up and left. Three of us managed to get on a bus going the long way outside the garage. I had a long and not so interesting trip back through the other two diversions and then the long way back home.

In all I can say that all the drivers were tense and most passengers were equally unhappy. This is not the standard of service that TDC paid Stagecoach all that cash for. Given that competition is impossible when one company is unfairly subsidised the least we should expect is a reasonable level of service.

Failures like that not only effect business across Thanet but also the likelihood that anyone is willing to forego the car and bus it. Both of these things are required if Margate town centre is to stand a hope in hell of competing with Westwood. The economy is bad enough in Thanet without this level of lacklustre attention to customer need from the key transport infrastructure.

I think apologies, resignations, refunds and passenger discounts are in order. Don't you?