Creating new petition to demand more, later, and better services
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 Arthur Ramsay
Dumfries, SCT, United Kingdom
  
1 Aug 2025
Hi folks and evening bus petition signers from previous years,

I think it is the time to get a new petition together. The departure of Stagecoach, except the Dumfries to Glasgow bus which might be used on occasion, and the taking up of the service by Houston's on a commercial basis only with no help from the Council and certainly no help from Swestrans, as they keep on saying, means several things are imminent:

1 Heathhall service has been scrapped even though there are many more houses and more planned. This is completely disgusting.

2 Locharbriggs service has been reduced from three to two an hour and every second one will also go through Heathhall. So many buses even if full sized coaches will be packed.

3 We will wait until Friday but we have yet to see if all buses will be full size or some will be mini buses They will be useless as there a lot of passengers with wheelchairs, buggies, prams and walking sticks.

4 This was a perfect opportunity to reinstate the evening services but once again it s obvious that they couldn't give a monkey's about the people of Lochar ward. The new timetables for the ridiculous Lochside and Lincluden combined service at least run to ten. Even that is 2 hours earlier but we remain at 820 which is three hours earlier. Why should we not get the same service in the evening as they do at the very least.(although that would still mean no connection to pubs and restaurants and the Crichton for anything ending later than 10 or those working after the last bus)

5 The only councillor who has backed us is Linda Dorward. The MSP who has always backed us in Lochar is Colin Smyth. The rest have been disinterested, or in some cases like those on the Swestrans board hostile and opposed to better services. This goes especially for the SNP much to my disappointment as I have had to resign my SNP membeship as a result. The Greens who I once stood for here have an observer at Swestrans meetings  who has done nothing to stop these disastrous cuts .

6 So I will be getting together a much bigger petition in a few weeks once we see what the outcome of the emergency Council meeting on 11th August I think and how things go. Meanwhile feel free to take any actions you can to persuade your Councillors and especially those in Dumfries to demand a complete renegotiation of public bus services including subsidies for them all so we can get buses to our communities from early to late, so that we can all visit workplaces, entertainment, hospitality and our friends in other localities.

Very best

Arthur Ramsay

 
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