Harrowing bus tales spark call for change Disabled,cancerpatientsand parentsstruggleonX7service
The X7 travels between PRI and Ninewells Hospital Wheelchair users are being turned away while a cancer patient undergoing daily treatment cannot even climb the stairs, according to campaigners.
The claims were made as a petition calling for changes to the X7 bus service was handed into Stagecoach.
Buses on the route, which runs between Perth Royal Infirmary and Ninewells Hospital in Dundee via Perth city centre and the Carse of Gowrie, were replaced in 2014.
Campaigners say the new coaches are more difficult to access and have limited capacity for wheelchair users and disabled passengers.
The petition was handed in by Kinnoull resident Liz Barrett and Perth City South councillor Willie Wilson, after they say they received “scores of responses” from members of the public on the issue, including “harrowing tales of the experiences of travellers”.
Some of the complaints included people in wheelchairs being turned away and a patient being turned off the bus because the driver could not get her wheelchair on board and secured.
Another person who is blind now has to depend on her family to take her to
Liz Barrett and Cllr Willie Wilson appointments because she Stagecoach’s dismissal of can no longer use the X7 the difficulties faced by the bus with confidence, which disabled, the infirm, and she says is due to a lack of those with young families. adequate disabled seating. “The steps in the coaches
Other complaints are steep and winding, and included a cancer not easy, even for a fit adult. patient who attends daily “Access for pushchairs, radiotherapy sessions wheelchairs and any struggling to climb the mobility aids is very steep stairs, patients on difficult, and loading a crutches being forced to wheelchair can result in a go upstairs, and mothers five minute delay for the struggling to use the bus bus and all its passengers.” when travelling with young Paul Thomas, managing children. director for Stagecoach
Liz Barrett said: “I was East Scotland, said: shocked by the stories we “Following our meeting received. This service is with Cllr Wilson yesterday needed by hospital patients (September 10), we will and visitors, often at a time consider his comments of great sadness. made on the proposed X7
“We are calling on coach route petition. Stagecoach again to please “However, we currently listen, and provide a userfriendly do not have any plans to and accessible revise the vehicles used on service on this route which this route. is so vital to people at a “All our vehicles meet difficult time for them.” the legal requirements and
Councillor Willie Wilson since the coaches went into added: “The response to service in November 2014 our survey shows that there has been significant people are angry with passenger growth.”