24 March 2023
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While funding for 19 services/part services is being withdrawn, the council will continue to spend more than £3.2million in the coming financial year to support or partly support 35 fixed routes and its A2B dial-a-bus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Following review, the services/journeys being withdrawn from June 12 are as follows: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