Aberdeenshire Council bus service cuts

[Volvodart]

Not all Bluebird, but Aberdeenshire Council are cutting supported services:-

https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/apps/news/release.aspx?newsID=9024

Council confirms forthcoming withdrawal of funding for some fixed route bus journeys from June 12
Aberdeenshire Council has confirmed the forthcoming withdrawal of funding on some fixed route bus journeys from June 12 this year.

It follows a review of the supported bus network in response to the reduction in the 2023/24 Revenue Budget allocation for supporting bus services as agreed by Full Council on March 9.

While funding for 19 services/part services is being withdrawn, the council will continue to spend more than £3.2million in the coming financial year to support or partly support 35 fixed routes and its A2B dial-a-bus services.

Using the council’s agreed Performance Management Framework (PMF) model for supported bus services, its Passenger Transport Unit was able to rank the relative performance of local bus service contracts.

The decision to stop running certain routes is based on real data. The number of users on a service over an agreed period was among the criteria used to evaluate which services were no longer viable.

The service also used what is called a sensitivity analysis – which means they took into consideration services which, if removed, would leave a community more vulnerable or without any connection at all.

Ewan Wallace, head of the council’s Environment and Sustainability service, said: “Like all local authorities, we are facing significant financial challenges and have had to identify savings across services and reduce our spend to deliver a balanced budget.

“We do appreciate that any reduction in public transport provision will have a detrimental impact on some residents and communities. However, by undertaking this review of our fixed routes bus services which ranked them in terms of performance from best to poorest, it is enabling us to focus on the more sustainable routes and help us to maintain the vast majority of our routes across the council-supported network for the coming year.”

Following review, the services/journeys being withdrawn from June 12 are as follows:

Service

4C Stonehaven Town Service - Sat inter-peak service (ie between peak times)

5A Echt to Westhill - Mon-Fri - am and pm peak journeys

6A Westhill to Aberdeen - Sat early morning journey

7A Stonehaven to Aberdeen - Mon-Fri early morning journey

35 Aberdeen to Turriff - Sun evening journey

51 Fraserburgh/New Pitsligo to Ellon - Mon-Fri peak and inter-peak service

61 Hatton to Peterhead via Cruden Bay - Mon-Fri early morning journey

64 Blackdog to Aberdeen - Mon & Thurs - inter-peak service

66/66A Stuartfield to Peterhead - Mon-Fri evening journey

69/69B Peterhead to Fraserburgh via St Fergus - Sat evening journeys

69 St Combs to Fraserburgh - Sat evening return journey

74 Rosehearty to Fraserburgh - Sat evening journeys

81 Peterhead to Boddam - Mon-Fri early morning and evening journey and Sun daytime service

82 Peterhead Town Service (Meethill) – Sat am peak journey

201 Braemar to Ballater – Sun service (all day)

231 Alford to Huntly - Sat - inter-peak service

270 Fraserburgh to New Pitsligo (Circular) - Sat peak and inter-peak journeys

272 Banff to Fraserburgh - Mon-Fri inter-peak journeys

405 Macduff to Cullen via Sandend – Wed & Fri interpeak service

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do Scottish Councils receive the same block grant as English ones from Westminster, or is it fully devolved? If devolved, is ScotGov reducing (or not increasing with inflation) the block grant in the way the Westminster Government is, which has caused major bus cuts in England? If not, what is the cause of this?

 

[Red Onion]

Not studied it in full yet but that will leave the likes of Echt and Garlogie without scheduled bus service now. I suppose if they aren’t being used though then it’s hard to justify keeping them.

 

[JKP]

Do Scottish Councils receive the same block grant as English ones from Westminster, or is it fully devolved? If devolved, is ScotGov reducing (or not increasing with inflation) the block grant in the way the Westminster Government is, which has caused major bus cuts in England? If not, what is the cause of this?

Scottish Councils receive their grants from Holyrood. As in England, Councils are faced with rising costs and have to budget accordingly. Unfortunately, buses are not a statutory provision so have to compete for funding with what is left after expenditure on education, social work provision etc.

Many of the cuts by Aberdeenshire look to be early morning, evening and Saturdays so hopefully will not adversely affect too many folk.

 

[Jordan Adam]

A lot of these cuts are just to certain journeys rather than significant routes.

The most notable losses I'd say are:

• Saturday Stonehaven Town Service
• Service 51 (Fraserburgh - New Pitsligo)
• Evening journeys on the 66/66A (Peterhead - Stuartfield)
• Sunday Braemar 201 journeys
• Service 272 (Fraserburgh - Banff)

Some of the cut services could probably be taken on commercially. The Morning 7A, for example, is usually quite busy; I'm surprised to learn that it's supported. Similarly, there is demand for the Sunday Braemar 201 in summer and it's likely that if axed the bus would just sit in Ballater for 90 minutes anyway.

Not studied it in full yet but that will leave the likes of Echt and Garlogie without scheduled bus service now. I suppose if they aren’t being used though then it’s hard to justify keeping them.

The service isn't used at all and usually runs empty, the timings don't help either. It would be nice to see the 218 increased with some journeys via Echt but that's unlikely to happen. Alternatively the old 210 (Aberdeen - Westhill - Torphins - Tarland - Ballater) could be reinstated, there probably would be more of a market for it now too given the 202 no longer operates.

New Post

I'm currently in Stonehaven, if today is the norm then I can see Stagecoach taking on the Saturday town service commercially. I've seen 47604 on a few runs and it's had a fully seated load each time.

 

[Red Onion]

I think the 210 would work. If I remember it used to run 3 times a day with a reasonable spread of times over the day. It certainly wouldn’t get council support but worth a commercial trial.

 

[lachlan]

New Post

I'm currently in Stonehaven, if today is the norm then I can see Stagecoach taking on the Saturday town service commercially. I've seen 47604 on a few runs and it's had a fully seated load each time.

Good to hear that it's busy. When I've taken it in the past on various weekdays it's generally been mostly empty.

I always thought it would be a big improvement if they found a way to serve Kirktown Garden Centre and the new houses up that way. If that new supermarket ever gets built at Redcloak that would be a good destination to add too.