A mix up left bus commuters stranded in Castlepark last week after roadworks began on the circle.

Residents have since hit out at lack of communication with the community over the roadworks on the Castlepark Circle, after the regular bus service didn’t operate on the first day of the works.

Stagecoach have since said this was because the contractor failed to provide a banksman to help the bus driver reverse, while NAC have apologised to residents for the lack of notice.

The road has had sections closed off since last week, with work expected to finish up on Friday, April 13.

Resident Marjory Dickie said: “Nobody in Castlepark knew the roads were getting sorted, the tenants and community association didn’t know.

They [NAC] didn’t consult the residents association, usually they would come to the community centre and say ‘we’re doing this, we’re doing that’ and put notices up to let the people know.

“We’re more concerned about the busses. On Monday I got on the first bus at Girdle at 9.20am and he said ‘I’m not going up Castlepark’.

A spokesperson for Stagecoach said: “We work closely with our Local Authority partners and when we received notification of resurfacing works in the Castlepark area we liaised with them to ensure that the contractor was informed that as part of the permission to commence works they would need to provide a banksman.

This is required to assist our vehicles to perform a reversing manoeuvre that would be necessary due to road closures.

“This is a key Health and Safety requirement and as such, when it became apparent that the agreed banksman had not been provided, we had to suspend sending vehicles into Castlepark while we liaised with the local authority to resolve this. This has now been resolved with the contractor providing the banksman they had agreed to and our services resumed journeys in Castlepark as soon as they were able to do so.”

A North Ayrshire Council spokesperson said: “We provide details of all works on our website and also ask contractors to place notification boards, prior to works starting, at the location.

“We understand that these were not erected prior to the work starting at Castlepark and we will investigate why this happened.

“Stagecoach had initially postponed their service but this resumed on Monday (April 2) afternoon when a banksman was put in place to coordinate the movement of the buses.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and hope disruption will now be kept to a minimum."