From Monday 19th July 2021, Service X23 will be temporarily suspended and will not operate.
Please see below for information on alternative routes available.
The impact of Covid-19 has affected every business in some form or other – First West Lothian is no exception. Indeed, the safety of our staff and customers throughout the pandemic has always been and continues to be our number one priority.
The ongoing impact of the effects of Covid-19 on our business is significant and is therefore having an effect on our day to day service delivery. The main challenges that we’re currently facing are:
The impact of a number of driving colleagues having to self-isolate.
Supporting those through time off that display covid symptoms including long covid.
The time taken for colleagues to await covid test results before being cleared to return to work.
Covid has also hindered our recruitment pipeline, as we have seen an increase in the number of leavers against a backdrop of a shortfall of available PCV drivers across the bus industry. A delay in the processing of PCV applications at the DVSA has only compounded this issue further.
Despite efforts to draft in driving staff from our sister companies and agencies, we’ve been unable to fill the temporary shortfall in driving staff needed to fulfil our day to day requirements as they presently stand.
Therefore, with effect from Monday, 19th of July, we intend to suspend the operation of service X23 temporarily and until such times as our recruitment process and indeed the wider availability of PCV drivers across the industry is in a position to restore the levels of driving staff within our business.
While the suspension of any route is always an absolute last resort, we do need to make sure that we’re able to operate our services consistently so that customers and key workers can depend on us while we factor in some contingency to best meet covid related disruption from day to day. The temporary suspension of service X23 will help us to achieve that objective.
Customers who currently use Service X23 may utilise alternative services in order to make their journeys and this route in its entirety is mirrored by services X22 & X24 along it's length.