Contentious Caledonian Considerations - 2

Dumfries & Galloway : Dangerous Gamble

Whitesands, on the banks of the river Nith, has been the de facto bus station in Dumfries since for ever.

A more recent postcard shows the spectacular weir and a few red Scottish Bus Group vehicles (far left).

The red is the livery of Western Scottish which ran buses in the south west of Scotland all the way from the Clyde down to the Solway.

Stagecoach bought Western,  with the Glasgow area remaining in employee buy-out state as Clydeside, then it was Arriva, and then McGills was reborn! 

So, these days, you would see plenty of Stagecoach buses on the stands at Whitesands.

Stagecoach's Dumfries depot still bears evidence of its previous life!

But it does appear that Stagecoach buses will no longer grace the banks of the Nith at Whitesands as they do currently.

In a Trump-like move, Stagecoach has announced that it is withdrawing completely from the area and closing its depots at Dumfries and Stranraer.

SHOCK HORROR!

The media has been following this for about a week.

The background lies with the re-tendering of all services in the region from August. It appears that the Council has imposed stricter conditions on new tenders to "improve reliability". Stagecoach has costed these additional and strict conditions (Back-up buses? Cover for breakdowns? Penalties for late running and/or missing buses?) and decided that the costs of these are too great.

So Stagecoach submitted a "non compliant" bid based on the current terms and conditions.

The local authority refused to accept this "non compliance" bid and therefore it was rejected.

So Stagecoach has had a major sulk and decided that it cannot work with the politicians any more.

Hence the closure of Dumfries and Stranraer depots and complete withdrawal from the area.

fbb would like to have given his readers a map of the Stagecoach networks in both locations, but the company web site is, as is so often the case, USELESS.

Here are the two relevant "maps"; of Dumfries ...

... and the wider area.

So not very helpful.

Dumfries and Galloway Council does provide a full set of timetables, but does not include the operator names in any of them.

Eventually, fbb found a list of Stagecoach bus services  buried deep in the company web site, which gives some idea as to the scope of the routes that will be abandoned.

That's a lot of services.

Stagecoach has announced that it will continue with the prestigious X74 ...

... running every hour to Glasgow.

Also it will continue its route 79 from Carlisle which is a Stagecoach Cumbria service and thus not on the D&G list.

This runs hourly through to Dumfries ...

... and half hourly to Annan. Here are the appropriate route "maps" for X74 ...

... and the Carlisle end of the 79.

Again very poor.

So it looks as if the Stagecoach exit is a done deal; but at what cost?

Dumfries and Galloway Council has to find operators for 24 bus services that they need not have been looking for. Will a hotch potch of tenders offer the level of reliability and stability that the Council seems to want?

Almost certainly, no.

Will the Council find that Stagecoach would have been a far better deal in the long run?

Almost certainly, yes.

The MSP is very narked!

He thinks that the Council should be taking over all the bus services by forming a Council owned company. That, says Col, would make things much better.

What MSP Colin does not explain is where the money to achieve this is coming from. Would a Council owned bus company work?

Almost certainly, no.

fbb predicts serious Stagecoach-less problems for Dumfries and Galloway Council.

We must wait and see what happens in just over a month's time and as the next few years progress

More D and G tomorrow.

 Next Contentious Caledonian blog : Wed 2nd July