Town centre bus routes in West Lothian are to be reduced from September 30 onwards because the council cannot afford to subsidise the routes.
The local bus network is provided through a combination of commercial services (80 per cent of the network) and council subsidised services (20 per cent of network).
West Lothian Council currently fully subsidise the Linlithgow Town Service (1), Bathgate Town Service (5) and Armadale Town Service (6) buses so that they can operate Monday to Friday until 6pm but from September 30 the services will only be operating until 3pm during the week and 12pm on a Saturday.
The Livingston – Bathgate via Linlithgow (31) service is also funded by the council. The funding provides an additional pick up in Ladywell and Dechmont and both will no longer be provided by the bus operator from 30 September.
The council currently spends nearly £2 million on subsiding various other services across West Lothian. They will continue to spend £37,775 on the Linlithgow Town Service, over £94,000 on the Bathgate Town service, £82,400 on the Armadale Town centre service and nearly £400,000 on the Livingston – Bathgate via Linlithgow (31) service.
Executive councillor for development and transport, Cathy Muldoon, said: “Funding for subsidised bus services is limited and the council cannot afford to continually subsidise all routes and additional hours.
“If commercial operators want to step in to fill the an additional three hours then we’d welcome that but the council can no longer afford to subsidise these services. The council must ensure that public money is spent as efficiently as possible in all areas and that includes subsidised bus networks.
She added: “The council continues to spend over £8million each year on public transport including mainstream school transport and additional support needs transport.
“Like all areas of the council, the amount of money that we have to spend on local services is reducing. Whilst not everyone will be happy with the changes, the council will have delivered savings of over £156.9 million between 2007/08 and 2022/23 largely as a result of Scottish Government funding constraints. It’s impossible for the council to continue to provide the same level of services with the levels of budget reductions that we face.”
