Dear Madam/SirI am responding to the poor excuses made by Swestrans, the transport arm of the Council, and Stagecoach West Scotland Buses in their remarks with regard to the second petition asking that evening buses to Locharbriggs and Heathhall removed during the pandemic be reinstated as they have been all over the country.
The remark by Swestrans that the route is not one subsidised by the Council and nothing to do with them is callous to say the least. Councillors are elected by the people to represent their interests and in the forthcoming General and later in the Scottish Parliamentary and local council elections we will take a dim view of those individuals and parties asking for our vote if they couldn’t care less if there are no buses for almost 10,000 of us living on or close to these routes. I have had responses to the petition from residents who have to walk home in the dark and in atrocious weather from the Infirmary and from evening jobs in the town. Do the Council not care about the risks involved?
As for Stagecoach buses, their strange claim that this would be a new service is ridiculous. It would be a reinstatement of a service that has ran for as long as anyone can remember. Their profits are substantial as a company and if they genuinely cannot afford to run the Numbers One and Two I suggest they publish their profit and loss accounts for the route and the region and ask for subsidies for the routes from the Swestrans arm of the Council. Perhaps these would be available on request to interested parties through the usual methods.
We suggest they, the Council and Stagecoach, bang their heads together and come up with perhaps the previous service from the town every 40 mins. at 9, 9.40, 10.20, 11, and 1140 pm as before. Previous correspondence in the Standard has highlighted the weak state of town businesses in the town centre. Making it very expensive or impossible to get to the town and back just robs businesses of thousands of potential customers every evening.
Anyone wanting to add their name to the petition can do so online at Change.org/bringbackeveningbusestoLocharbriggsandHeathhall.
Currently we have over 400 signatures, the same as last year’s petition in half the time