PASSENGER Jarek Lukasik is getting hot under the collar at Stagecoach because the heating is still on in the buses he uses for his journey to work every day, even in the heat of the summer.

The 62-year-old from Old Town says he has complained a number of times because he finds the heat on his morning commute is to be unbearable.

For the past 10 years he has been travelling on the number 7 bus every day to get to Honda at South Marston where he works.

“For a few years it has been the same, the heating is always on. Before I asked a few drivers and they didn’t even realise and I have asked managers and they just apologise but nothing is done.”

Jarek has tried to take different buses and he has found they also tend to have the heating on. “No one puts the air conditioning on when it’s hot. The bus drivers don’t realise because they have their window open.”

“It’s even hotter upstairs so I don’t go up there now, even during the really hot days the heating was on. Everyone complains but nothing is done.”

After Jarek complained to Stagecoach he was told that on some occasions when a bus has been serviced the engineers forget to turned off the heating before it is used again for service.

He was told that the majority of drivers of the buses don’t have control over the heating and that it is either on or off.

Stagecoach told him in an email that the engineering department will check the vehicles involved.

But he told the Adver: “It’s just rubbish they are aware of this. It’s better for the engine, but they need to think of the people. They must change this, it’s unbelievable.”

The engineering director at Stagecoach West Tom Large said: “Ensuring our customers have a pleasant and comfortable journey is extremely important to us and we apologise to any customers who have experienced this.

“Our newer buses have air chill which automatically adjusts to maintain a comfortable temperature.

“However, some of our older buses have heating systems which are manually controlled. During the summer months, the vehicle heating function is switched off.

“We encourage customers travelling on a bus with heating on to take a note of the licence plate number and report this to our customer service team so that we can investigate.”