Bus passenger Cathy Foot is calling on Oxford's bus firms to lay on extra services to deal with the summer influx of foreign language students.

People living on the Greater Leys and Blackbird Leys estates are having to wait up to half an hour to get their buses because youngsters lodging with families on the estates have joined the competition for places.

Queues of people are having to stand and watch buses, already crammed with passengers, ignore them as they make their way in and out of town at peak times.

Now Mrs Foot and fellow passengers say the bus firms should provide more vehicles to meet the demand.

Mrs Foot, 45, of Swift Close, Greater Leys, said: "I'm not anti-foreign students, I'm just anti-not being able to get to work.

"Sometimes you can stand on the Cowley Road in the evening and three buses will go past before one has any room. If you look at the bus stop near the Original Swan in Cowley between eight and nine in the morning sometimes you'll see 50 people at one time all waiting at the bus stops.

Jonathan Radley, marketing manager for the Oxford Bus Company, said the company had been in discussions with language schools to detemine how many youngsters were in Oxford and where they were staying.

He said: "At the beginning of July we brought into service seven double-decker buses which we called 'queue busters'. We try and put on extra services at peak times."

But he added: "The Botley Road works coupled with work on the railway station does not help us with running at specified times."

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