SAFETY FIRST
Commuters in Cleland were turfed off buses in freezing temperatures prompting one councillor to launch a stinging attack on the bus operators.
The SNP’s Cameron McManus was left furious after several complaints from residents informing him that passengers had to walk up to two miles in the snow after First Bus drivers said the 241 service to Cleland would terminate in Coltness due to the bad weather.
In a letter to First Glasgow’s managing director Andrew Jarvis, Councillor McManus said: “Over recent weeks I’ve received numerous complaints from constituents about First Bus 241 service North Motherwell – Cleland Terminus.
“These complaints are concerning bus drivers kicking off passengers at Coltness terminus and refusing to continue up to Cleland forcing people to walk nearly two miles with one of the oldest residents getting in touch as old as 68!
“This service is bad at the best of times but refusing to go that extra mile (no pun intended) to help people get home during one of the worst snow storms since 2011 is embarrassing.
“The drivers advertised the bus going to Cleland. Drivers did not say to passengers buses would not be travelling to the village and blaming it on the bad weather despite HGVs, ambulances and cars being able to go both up and down the main road is unacceptable.
“After the way First Bus have treated the people of Cleland in doing so I would like an explanation as to why you deem this acceptable!”
First’s business director Duncan Cameron insisted customer safety was the company’s number one priority.
He said: “Unfortunately, the adverse weather conditions experienced across our network area between 16 and 22 January caused significant disruptions to many of our services and rendered many parts of our network impassable or unsafe to use, sometimes for prolonged periods.
“Where service 241 is concerned, on January 16 and 17 our on-street reports deemed that certain areas of the route, such as Coltness terminus, were unsafe for our vehicles to use.
“The decision was therefore taken to divert journeys away from those areas, and some journeys were also terminated short, on safety grounds and we believe these actions were the most appropriate under the circumstances. “While we v e r y mu c h regret any inconvenience that this type of service alteration caused to our customers, part i c u l a r l y in challenging weather conditions, such decisions are taken wi t h the wellbeing of passengers in mind and we will never compromise on passenger safety by operating in an area deemed to be unsafe.
“During these disruptions, we continually updated passengers in affected areas through social media and our website.
“I have to commend our front-line teams, who really did everything they possibly could to keep all of our services running as much as was possible under the circumstances.
“When businesses up and down the country were being advised to send their staff home for safety reasons, our front-line teams were still out digging snow and trying their best to keep our network moving as much as was safely possible.
“In this instance, I must also stress that we were in regular contact with the local authority over the difficulties our buses were having accessing certain areas due to stuck or abandoned vehicles.
“We have written to Councillor McManus and told him that First Glasgow would be more than happy to meet with officials from the relevant department(s) to discuss these difficulties, and matters such as the proactive gritting of bus routes as a priority, with a view to ensuring that there is a greater chance of service being maintained during any similar weather events that occur in future.”