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Bus Service Withdrawal - Parents To
Protest
Scrabster parents faced with the withdrawal of bus services that
normally took their children to school are planning to hold a protest
march. Over 40 families in the Scrabster area alone are affected by
the withdrawal of bus services by Rapson's buses who say that the
failure to secure the the school contracts means that the routes are no
longer financially viable. Various places in Caithness are affected
to one degree or another. Parents acknowledge that the council is
not directly to blame for the sudden withdrawal of the services and accept
that the interim measures will hold the situation for two weeks after the
school children return after the holidays but are anxious about the
arrangements after that. Councillors are trying to see if there is
any way to resolve the situation. It is the loss of contracts to
carry children free of charge that has had a knock on effect on children
who pay to travel to school because of the three mile limit. Free
transport is available for children who live more than three miles from
school. But the children who live less than three miles from the
school are often carried on the same bus paying fares as the children who
were uplifted further out.
Where a carrier picks up both
subsidised passengers and fare paying passengers any loss of a contract
affects the viability of the route as has happened in this case. The
bus company has decided to cease the affected routes and therefore it
would no longer be available to anyone subsidised or full fare paying.
This is the problem the council now faces in trying to sort it out.
The parents at Scrabster are going to
march from Scrabster to Pennyland Primary and Thurso High Schools |