A WOMAN and her eight-month-old daughter were left freezing and stranded for over an hour after two buses consecutively denied them access, saying there was "no room for prams".

In both instances, the young mum said neither bus driver asked the able-bodied people that were sat in the wheelchair and buggy zone to vacate their seat to make room.

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Stephanie Watson and her baby daughter, Mia, were trying to get home after attending a friend's daughter's birthday party in Nelson.

They waited for the bus to Laneshawbridge at the stop across the road from the Prince of Wales pub.

It was raining and cold and as it was around 5.30pm, starting to get very dark.

Stephanie says that two buses stopped but both refused to let her on saying that there was no room for a mother and a pram.

However, Stephanie could clearly see inside the vehicles and saw that in both cases, the area designated for prams and wheelchair users was taken up by able bodied people. None of them had baby carriages or wheelchairs, despite being sat in the area specifically designated for people with those items.

Stephanie, who suffers from ADHD and has learning difficulties, says she felt very vulnerable being out alone in the dark and after being stranded alone for over an hour, she was panicked and upset.

The 28-year-old said: "I don't like being out at night as it is because I know I'm a vulnerable person and I get worried about what could happen.

"Mia was crying and I was getting scared that she might get ill or too cold because I just didn't know how long I would be stuck there.

"It was awful. I just wanted to get her home."

It was almost Mia's 7pm bedtime by the time the two finally managed to get a bus to take them home.

This week a landmark court case ruled that bus company, First Bus, have been ordered to change their policy so that they can order people to move from their seats to make room for disabled people.

Doug Paulley, from West Yorkshire, entered into an arduous 18-month legal battle after he was prevented from travelling on a First bus to Leeds because the driver refused to insist that a mother with a pushchair should leave the space because it would wake up her baby.

A spokesperson for Transdev said: “We take complaints very seriously.

"As a policy we ask our drivers to politely request that customers already occupying the Wheelchair/Buggy Zone to make room for intending passengers. As can be appreciated this can be a difficult situation to manage as we are relying on the goodwill of our customers.

"This practice is current industry standard and we continually train our drivers on this and other polices as good Customer Service is vital to our business."