Hughes Demands Rethink On Bus Cuts

SNP member for the Upper Braes Ward of Falkirk Council that includes a significant number of rural communities has demanded equality for all rural communities.

Falkirk Council’s Labour / Tory Administration announced a miserly 1% increase in the budget for subsidised busses then members were shocked to learn that this was being directed at the restoration of one service only, that of the last bus to Slamannan.

In 1997 the then Labour Administration of Falkirk Council introduced qualifying criteria for subsidy that measured the number of passengers using each service. Labour’s message was use it or lose it and since then a significant number of services are being discontinued.

One service that was not renewed was the late night service to Slamannan that fell significantly short of the minimum number of passengers (4) required to meet the criteria.

In a bizarre action Labour have reinstated this one service against its own officers advice and against the qualifying criteria that led to the axing of other services throughout Falkirk district following representation made by John McLuckie, the former Independent candidate who turned to Labour in 2007.

Now the SNP’s Gordon Hughes is demanding that all communities be given the same opportunity to restore bus services.

“If Labour are now saying that the criteria for qualification for bus subsidy is no longer the sole issue for consideration then surely all communities should be treated equally?

I welcome the restoration of the Slamannan bus but also believe that the communities such as Whitecross, Avonbridge, California and Maddiston also deserve the same consideration.

It appears that Mr McLuckie is not interested in these communities but I am and so have tabled a motion for the next meeting of the full council to demand a report back on all of the services axed now that the 1997 policy criteria has been set aside.”

Gordon Hughes is likely to be joined by SNP members representing rural constituencies such as Blackness and Frankerton who have all lost services recently due to the implementation of the policy introduced by Labour in 1997.