Bo’ness Community Bus SCIO

Registered charity number: SC047023

Update from Bo’ness Community Bus
Scheduled services (F49 Bo’ness – Blackness – Linlithgow)
 
With effect from Saturday 13^th August 2022, Bo’ness Community Bus SCIO will no longer be providing the scheduled services between Bo’ness – Blackness – Linlithgow.

The Charity Trustees have taken the very difficult decision to not tender for the contract for this service with Falkirk Council.

This decision has not been taken lightly and a number of factors have been taken into consideration when reaching this very difficult decision.

• The last 2 years have been incredibly tough for the Charity. Drivers have left and we have been unable to replace them due to the nationwide shortage of drivers across all sectors.
• We have seen a significant reduction in passenger numbers due to the pandemic and the changes of working patterns (people working from home) resulting in us running many empty vehicles.
• The ever-increasing cost of fuel, insurance and repairs to the aging fleet of vehicles has also had an impact on our services.

We appreciate this will be very disappointing news for our passengers and loyal supporters, but we would like to emphasise that Falkirk Council has put the service out to tender and the scheduled service will get picked up by a different operator. Please note that this may result in changes to running schedules.

It is not the responsibility of Bo’ness Community Bus to provide this service. In the current climate it was just no longer a viable proposition for us.

The Charity was set up to support the local community at a time when all the major bus groups left us without a regular service. This is no longer the case and Citylink now runs regular services to Edinburgh and various other bus operators provide local services.

The Charity has been run by a number of different volunteer trustees over the years but it has found it increasingly difficult to recruit local community members to help support the operations needed to keep the services running.

We are incredibly grateful to everybody who has given their time and energy to help with the many tasks involved with running a charity and scheduled bus service.
We would like to thank all our passengers, drivers and supporters for their custom and support over the last few years.

On Behalf of the Trustees of Bo’ness Community Bus SCIO