PASSENGERS have been left frantically trying to board their bus after council bosses erected shelters with no exits.

The shelters were erected in Darwen town centre, in front of the town hall, last week.

While the right-hand entrances from the pavement side have been left open as planned, the exits towards the roadway - and the buses - are blocked off by a pane of thick, toughened glass.

Fuming passengers are being forced to wait outside the shelters, often in a downpour, or race out of and around the back of the shelters when their bus rolls up.

Coun Alan Cottam, executive member for regeneration for Blackburn with Darwen Council, admitted the council's blueprints for the new shelters had not been followed.

He said: "Our intention was to have an exit on the front of the shelters facing the oncoming buses.

"Unfortunately, this has not been done correctly. We will be rectifying this as soon as possible."

Colin Gent, 65, from Ash Grove, often walks into Darwen town centre from his home and gets the bus back.

He said: "I was down town and went to the local bus stop but once you are in, you have to come out again and enter the bus from the road.

"It's ridiculous what they've done in spending that money when the design is all wrong.

"You come out of that shelter and if it's raining you are stood there having to wait for people getting off the bus and if you walk out to wait you are in the rain.

"If the partition wasn't there we could stop under the shelter and get straight onto the bus without getting wet.

"A lot of elderly people are furious about this."

Eileen Guy, Darwen market hall representative, said a number of people had asked her for information about the blunder.

She said: "It's been mainly elderly people coming to see me to say they have to wait outside the bus shelters.

"They say that the workmen said it was going in the right way and that it was for safety reasons.

"One old lady said to me 'I've never seen anybody knocked down trying to get on the bus'."

Mr Gent added: "I don't think it's a big job, they don't have to pull all the bus stop down.

"It's just a matter of taking four bolts out and putting the glass on the other side."