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Edinburgh Tour Operators: Bright Bus, Lothian (Majestic, Three Bridges) etc.

In Focus

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13 Sep 2018
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615
Anyway back to the topic of the thread ,took a wee jaunt to Edinburgh today on the train £6.80 return, got there in just under 25 minutes(not the overpriced new bus route £8.00 return) . Watched a few of the BBT buses seen a few with good numbers upwards of 20 on board and a few around 2 o'clock with only a handful onboard.
Seems the venture will have the desired effect of drawing in way more than the shortfall caused by LCB venture into WL. Good news all around for First.
 
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Fryschocream

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24 May 2019
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Transport for Edinburgh is an CEC vehicle for all their transport holdings which includes the Lothian group as well as trams. It also includes cycling infrastructure. They get their funding via CEC. Sorry if these facts don't fit your story but why let that get in the way of your fantasy. You're not that taxi driver off Facebook y any chance?
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Do you still believe in the tooth fairy as well ?

Four people have explained it to you - not certain why you’re having trouble understanding that? LB makes money, pays a dividend, keeps other funds for investment as they see fit. It’s in the accounts. For instance, in 2016 they made £11m profit but only paid a dividend of £6m. You may also not understand that they had £128m in retained profits sat on the balance sheet in 2017 - have you actually read the published accounts???

Black and white. Published accounts. No fairy stories.
 

CM

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Joined
28 Dec 2010
Messages
667
I have an issue with people fabricating nonsense and rdfusling to believe transport for Edinburgh (and now west lothian and east Lothian) is not owned by Lothian and therefore tax payers hard earned cash .

Because it isn't? Read and learn - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_for_Edinburgh

Transport for Edinburgh is a managment body set up to cover the Lothian Buses and Tram system, it isn't owned by Lothian. Lothian PAY a dividend to it's shareholders not the other way around. The only "taxpayers" cash that Lothian etc etc get is the coins shoved in the vaults on buses or tickets bought via the mobile app etc etc. That's it, simple.
 

SpeedbirdA350

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Joined
25 Feb 2018
Messages
698
Location
Edinburgh
Anyway back to the topic of the thread ,took a wee jaunt to Edinburgh today on the train £6.80 return, got there in just under 25 minutes(not the overpriced new bus route £8.00 return) . Watched a few of the BBT buses seen a few with good numbers upwards of 20 on board and a few around 2 o'clock with only a handful onboard.
Seems the venture will have the desired effect of drawing in way more than the shortfall caused by LCB venture into WL. Good news all around for First.
Why do you hate Lothian so much? You said previously you wish for them (or LCB) to fail but when I asked why, you failed to answer. I just don't understand your mindset on why you want a company to fail to bad. My 2 guesses are you're either an employee of First and looking out for your job which is understandable or you have shares in the company. You keep talking about tax payers cash despite Lothian not operating in the way you seem to think it does and you seem to gloss over the fact that if you want to look at public transport wasting tax payers cash, we have a tramline which has done exactly that (£231m loan plus £21k daily interest) but yet, you say nothing on that subject which suggests it's not down to tax payers money after all.

Given this is peak tourism season, having tourists on tour buses is not a shocking revolution, and given we have more tourists here than ever before, there is plenty to go around. If you had looked at Lothian tour buses, you'd see they had people on them too so while First might make some money on this, it's not really going to change much in the terms of how tour buses operate here. It's good that people have a choice though, and they can choose which service they want. Just like how you can pick which supermarket to shop at or which website to browse, having a choice in life is a wonderful thing.
 

Driver362

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Joined
12 Aug 2018
Messages
296
Also West Lothian Council is saving taxpayers cash by removing subsidies circa 500k? No point wasting taxpayers cash with buses running about empty. Maybe some of this can be offset by BBT profits. Or have I got it wrong. Won't be the first time eh?
 

overthewater

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16 Apr 2012
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8,155
Also West Lothian Council is saving taxpayers cash by removing subsidies circa 500k? No point wasting taxpayers cash with buses running about empty. Maybe some of this can be offset by BBT profits. Or have I got it wrong. Won't be the first time eh?

It's only 350K at the moment, I doubt the locals in Linlithgow/Broxburn etc will let the 3-5pm journeys disappear However further cuts should REALLY be taking place to the No5, No7 and No31. that would save another 3 buses making it 600k easily, before cutting the town services. We could be heading for £1million savings overall..
 

Driver362

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12 Aug 2018
Messages
296
Yeah been hearing a lot of chat from our pax on services, cash amounts etc all just talk till they all take place I guess. Think the EEN was a bit naughty putting a pic of one of our buses at the top of the story. As you know none of our services are subsidiesed. Unless you believe in focus theory of it being funded by tax payers cash!
 

Jordan Adam

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12 Sep 2017
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5,514
Location
Aberdeen
Yeah been hearing a lot of chat from our pax on services, cash amounts etc all just talk till they all take place I guess. Think the EEN was a bit naughty putting a pic of one of our buses at the top of the story. As you know none of our services are subsidiesed. Unless you believe in focus theory of it being funded by tax payers cash!

It's not all that surprising. I think most of us on here would agree the EEN have a strong "Anti-Lothian" agenda.
 

alchemy

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14 Jan 2013
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135
Location
orkney
In Focus. Out of Focus. Tunnel Vision. Madder tinted specs (or green blue or pink if you prefer) Bright eyes. Could go on but wont.
At present the passengers wanting tours or travel in west lothian are benefiting by having more choice. That must be good news at least for the time being.
 

Driver362

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12 Aug 2018
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296
Exactly, is that not what deregulation was meant to try and achieve anyway?
 

winston270twm

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26 Oct 2012
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1,899
I have an issue with people fabricating nonsense and rdfusling to believe transport for Edinburgh (and now west lothian and east Lothian) is not owned by Lothian and therefore tax payers hard earned cash .

Pot & kettle spring to mind when your claiming that Lothian is funded by tax payers cash.... Lothian is a commercial business, Lothian owns & funds ECB & LCB which are held as separate limited companies with Lothian being the parent company. Lothian is owned by the various Councils and pays an annual dividend if profitable. Therefore, cash is going in to the public purse, not coming out.....

There's not point debating Lothian's accounts, as you don't understand them as pointed out in previous debates.
 

Fryschocream

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Joined
24 May 2019
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I notice 'In Focus' doesn't have a problem catching publicly funded trains.....you know....with taxpayers cash. Have pity on the boy....he know not what he speaketh about.
 

In Focus

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13 Sep 2018
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615
Pot & kettle spring to mind when your claiming that Lothian is funded by tax payers cash.... Lothian is a commercial business, Lothian owns & funds ECB & LCB which are held as separate limited companies with Lothian being the parent company. Lothian is owned by the various Councils and pays an annual dividend if profitable. Therefore, cash is going in to the public purse, not coming out.....

There's not point debating Lothian's accounts, as you don't understand them as pointed out in previous debates.
Who owns Lothian?
 

In Focus

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13 Sep 2018
Messages
615
In Focus. Out of Focus. Tunnel Vision. Madder tinted specs (or green blue or pink if you prefer) Bright eyes. Could go on but wont.
At present the passengers wanting tours or travel in west lothian are benefiting by having more choice. That must be good news at least for the time being.

It's great news especially as BBT took more in a week than LCB take in a month floating around West Lothian with empty buses :) and now while they spunk money in West Lothian and take eye of the ball they're also losing valuable revenue in the city....

oh dear has the main man fallen into the Moir Lockhead trap ?
 

In Focus

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13 Sep 2018
Messages
615
In focus.....bitter about something? LB upset you somehow?
Not at all its actually quite funny watching how much of a cock up they are creating and each new route gets more and more bizarre ,culminating in these ex services charging £4 + £5 to go along the road :)

For a company who got such a fantastic reputation in the city it's rather hard to comprehend who is dreaming up some of this stuff in West Lothian
 

winston270twm

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26 Oct 2012
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Who owns Lothian?

I could have sworn it said in the post your replying too

'The various Councils' all own Lothian, but as it's a profitable commercial business, no taxpayers money is being used to fund it. Funds go back in to the Councils via dividends! Infact all £7.691 million...... :rolleyes:
 

TheGrandWazoo

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I could have sworn it said in the post your replying too

'The various Councils' all own Lothian, but as it's a profitable commercial business, no taxpayers money is being used to fund it. Funds go back in to the Councils via dividends! Infact all £7.691 million...... :rolleyes:

In Focus (ahem....irony) refuses to understand reality. As has been explained

LB makes money, pays a dividend, keeps other funds for investment as they see fit. It’s in the accounts.

For instance, in 2016 they made £11m profit but only paid a dividend of £6m. You may also not understand that they had £128m in retained profits sat on the balance sheet in 2017

LB makes money. Some is returned to the councils as a dividend. The rest used for investment.
 

cactustwirly

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In Focus (ahem....irony) refuses to understand reality. As has been explained



LB makes money. Some is returned to the councils as a dividend. The rest used for investment.

But do they make enough profit to cover the losses at West Lothian?
 

winston270twm

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In Focus (ahem....irony) refuses to understand reality. As has been explained

Hmmm, only picks up on certain bits, glosses over the rest & doesn't even offer anything to back up the sweeping claims!

But do they make enough profit to cover the losses at West Lothian?
Only Lothian know what losses LCB are making at present, anything else is just pure guesswork.

Additionally, I'd have expected Lothian will have made provisions for losses on startup in their business plan for LCB.
 

Gingerbus1991

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30 Jul 2018
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992
I could have sworn it said in the post your replying too

'The various Councils' all own Lothian, but as it's a profitable commercial business, no taxpayers money is being used to fund it. Funds go back in to the Councils via dividends! Infact all £7.691 million...... :rolleyes:
Edinburgh should be asking where the £7.5m goes!
 

tbtc

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It's great news especially as BBT took more in a week than LCB take in a month floating around West Lothian with empty buses :) and now while they spunk money in West Lothian and take eye of the ball they're also losing valuable revenue in the city....

It's kind of funny when enthusiasts end up sounding like football fans, eagerly seeing only the positive in "their" team and using any excuse they can to denigrate their opponents - pure fanboi stuff - most entertaining.

It'd be interesting to see the figures for the revenue that First have made on their new venture, against the (previously unpublished) revenues - I presume that you'll be sharing these with the other boys and girls (rather than, say, making stuff up because you are a fan of one bus company and take a peculiar dislike to another bus company)?
 

In Focus

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13 Sep 2018
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615
Imagine though the first week of BBT and it took more than LCB are taking in its West Lothian venture in a month , can you really imagine it ?
 

In Focus

Member
Joined
13 Sep 2018
Messages
615
It's kind of funny when enthusiasts end up sounding like football fans, eagerly seeing only the positive in "their" team and using any excuse they can to denigrate their opponents - pure fanboi stuff - most entertaining.

It'd be interesting to see the figures for the revenue that First have made on their new venture, against the (previously unpublished) revenues - I presume that you'll be sharing these with the other boys and girls (rather than, say, making stuff up because you are a fan of one bus company and take a peculiar dislike to another bus company)?

The day after LCB announce their first year results for its WL venture I shall see what I can do for you !! :)
 

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