No return of evening bus, no votes for a political party

In the last two years there has been two petitions submitted to Dumfries and Galloway Council and Stagecoach Buses West of Scotland asking for our evening bus service to be restored after it was removed during the Pandemic. Both requested a return of the service No.1/2 which ran every forty minutes from 820 until 1120 and later on Fridays and  Saturdays. The online petitions had over 1000 signatures and were backed by some local politicians. We did not think it necessary to go round doors adding more signatures as the topic was covered in the local press including a front page.  Nevertheless the response from Swestrans, the transport arm of the Council, was that the ten thousand people who live on the routes 1 and 2 from the Moffat and Edinburgh Roads to the top of Locharbiggs and Heathhall, a distance of over three miles, could not be helped as Stagecoach received no subsidy for the service and could therefore run as many or as few buses as it liked. The petitions were submitted to Stagecoach’s local Chief Executive Fiona Docherty but received no response or even acknowledgment. Therefore we have decided as signatories of this new petition to ask again that we have a bus service reinstated in the evenings so we can get to town or further and back for employment,leisure. social and medical reasons. We therefore state that we will not support any party at future elections, whether local,Scottish or British, that does not actively and strongly support our campaign and ensure we have an acceptable bus service in operation in the evenings. If no party gives us its full support we may put up candidates for election on the single issue of local transport and allied issues. The people who live in our communities should not be treated in such a disdainful and callous manner and should be integrated into the town of Dumfries and surrounding areas from which we are excluded by lack of buses, which are even more necessary now that we have additional housing with lots more to come. Please support this third attempt or we will be forced to become more militant about it and take action to bring our plight to the attention of the public through demonstrations, marches, attending meetings, and any other legal means.

Arthur Ramsay

Dumfries, SCT, United Kingdom

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