Bo'ness and Area Community Bus Association SCIO

‘Please complete this survey to have your say on our services and help determine our future.’ Survey PDF

As we come up to the end of our first year in operation it is time to reflect on our successes and look ahead to our future developments. Since we started delivering services on the 8th May 2017 we have delivered over 5000 free journeys to concessionary card holders. We have also delivered over 600 journeys to our fare paying passengers. We have contributed to tourism in the area by delivering walking groups to Blackness to start walks on the John Muir Way, visitors to Blackness Castle, the Bo’ness Steam Railway and Museum, the Hippodrome, Kinneil House and the Motor Museum; all of whom are also sponsors for the Bus and we carry their advertising on both Buses. We would like to take this opportunity of thanking those individuals who have made donations either via bus collection or individually. You have supplemented our income by over £2500 which, when supplemented by gift aid, comes to an amazing £3000. Achieving a Bus Services Operators Licence is something that has been forced upon us by proposed changes to the way the Department of Transport allows Charities to operate bus services. As your trustees, we considered that the constraints that Charites will face would be too difficult to run the services that we currently operate, and despite the severe financial implications, we opted to pursue that route. I am happy to announce that we are in the final stages of our application for an ‘O’ licence which will allow us to make big changes in the way we are organised and the services we can provide. We would also like to thank our funders who have shown confidence in our ability to run our own Bus service and have made available much of the funding required to make these changes possible. However, funders also require assurances that money is spent on the specific tasks or reasons for its granting, and all of them want to ensure that the services are sustainable. To guarantee that, we have set specific targets and these are set out below: 1. Building passenger numbers on the Bo’ness to Edinburgh route • To get sustainable numbers means, to put it crudely, getting more bums on seats. • Although we have many regular passengers, we also have a lot of room for more. We must encourage those who have supported us to get their friends on board. • We have a target of raising our concessionary takings by £500 per month by July. This equates to 150 additional journeys a month, 36 per week, or 6 a day; which is only another 3 returns – a highly achievable number. • Our target for fare paying passengers is £700 per month, which we could achieve with a modest increase in numbers. 2. Hires The operator’s licence removes the restriction on ‘members only’ Hires and allows us a more general Hire policy. Although we are limited by actual operations and leasing mileage limitations, we have a modest target of achieving £500 per month through hires. 3. Public Service Contracts The biggest opportunity is in a field that had formerly denied us the ability to tender for public Service contracts. This would provide a real opportunity for expansion. It would open us up to being able to tender for Schools Contracts and subsidised schedule routes. This would open a significant revenue source to us and enable us to examine innovative ways of extending bus services in Bo’ness. Busey McBusFace Competition FANCY WINNING £300? Manual Entry will be available by 11th May on the Bus or in the Bo’ness Library, Blackness Shop, Bo’ness LIDL and Tesco at Bo’ness and Linlithgow and will run until 25th May.

FANCY WINNING £300? The Bo’ness & Area Community Bus Association and our sponsor Virtue Money, are delighted to launch our Busey McBusFace Competition, to name each of our 2 buses. The Competition is open to UK residents, within the terms and conditions of entry, which can be found at bonesscommunitybus.scot. The Closing Date is 25 May and winners will be announced on 25 June. Entry is free but limited to 1 entry per person. You must ‘like’ the post and we would appreciate you sharing this information, but that is not a condition of entry. We hope to have the names on the buses for the Bo’ness Fair procession on 29 June. To enter just hit the ‘like’ button on our FACEBOOK page and comment on the post with your suggested name for the bus. Feel free to ‘share’ if you wish. By entering the competition you are confirming that you agree to the terms and conditions of this competition, which can be found at https://bonesscommunitybus.scot/ . You are also confirming that you are happy for your details to be saved for any marketing purposes of the Bo’ness and Area Community Bus Association. GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

The promoter is: Bo’ness and Area Community Bus Association SCIO whose registered office is at 1 Muirhouses Crescent, Bo’ness EH51 9DH and sponsors are Virtue Money, Oracle Campus, Blackness Road, Linlithgow EH49 7LR. The competition is open to residents of the United Kingdom aged 18 years or over except employees of Policy Services/Virtue Money and their close relatives and anyone otherwise connected with the organisation or judging of the competition. There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition. By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions. Rules for entry for the competition and details of how to enter are via http:// bonesscommunitybus.scot The competition will run on Facebook and local outlets in Bo’ness. Only one entry and one suggestion will be accepted per person. Multiple entries from the same person will be disqualified. Closing date for entry will be Friday 25th After this date no further entries to the competition will be permitted. No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason. The rules of the competition and how to enter are as follows: Written Entries into Ballot boxes placed in Lidl, Bo’ness, Bo’ness Library, The Village Shop, Blackness and the Tesco stores in Bo’ness and Linlithgow. Entry on Facebook via Bo’ness Community Bus page. The page must be liked to qualify for entry. The promoter, Bo’ness and Area Community Bus reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, act of God or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other event outside of the promoter’s control. Any changes to the competition will be notified to entrants as soon as possible by the promoter.   The promoter is not responsible for inaccurate prize details supplied to any entrant by any third party connected with this competition.   The prize is as follows: £300 for the winning name for each bus.   The prize is as stated and no alternatives will be offered. The prizes are not transferable.   Winners will be chosen: By a panel of judges appointed by the Bo’ness and Area Community Bus.   The winner will be notified by email and/or PM on Facebook or by letter within 28 days of the closing date. If the winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.   The promoter will notify the winner when and where the prize can be collected / is delivered.   The promoter’s decision in respect of all matters to do with the competition will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.   By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.   The competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by Scots law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Scotland.   By entering the competition your contact details may be used by Bo’ness and Area Community Bus and Virtue Money for future promotional information.   The winner agrees to the use of his/her name and image in any publicity material for Bo’ness and Area Community Bus Association SCIO and the competition sponsors, Virtue Money, as well as their entry.   The winner’s name will be available 28 days after closing date by emailing the following address: info@bonesscommunitybus.scot   Entry into the competition will be deemed as acceptance of these terms and conditions.   This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Network. You are providing your information to Bo’ness and Area Community Bus Association SCIO and not to any other party. The information provided will be used in conjunction with the following Privacy Policy found at http://bonesscommunitybus.scot.   Bo’ness and Area Community Bus Association SCIO also reserves the right to cancel the competition if circumstances arise outside of its control.

We have made arrangements to take the residents of Dean Court sheltered housing on the Fair procession. 

Visit Scottish Parliament with free tours on Saturday. Book the Community Bus. We have four journeys each way on Saturdays