Unregistered Mini Bus Services

Low usage rates and ongoing Covid-19 restrictions have combined to bring forward proposals to end three Blether Bus services in Dundee.

At pre-pandemic levels the Lochee, Cleppie and Balgay services combined were welcoming less than 20 passengers per day between them, meaning each passenger was subsidised by the council to the tune of more than £10 per return trip.

Mark Flynn, convener of the council’s city development committee said: “I am disappointed that this innovative way of using resources didn’t work out and nobody wants to be in a position of taking away a service that some people in our communities have been using.

“But when we have to think about all of the people in every community in the city, and other services that we have to provide, these numbers just don’t add up.

“The Balgay Blether Bus was only getting two to three users a day, and the other two while they’ve been going a bit longer, were averaging between six and eight.

“It would be irresponsible and unfair to continue paying so much money for so few people to benefit, when we could be using those resources to meet the changes in school education and the increasing number pupils accessing off-site activities and shared learning.”

The Lochee and Cleppie Blether Bus services were introduced March 2018 as a way of using council mini buses and drivers who were otherwise only deployed to transport pupils at the beginning and end of each school day. The Balgay Blether Bus was brought on stream in August 2019.

This use of council resources was also seen as a way of providing transport links in communities where commercial operators had withdrawn bus services.

The minibus services were suspended in March 2020 at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic due to public health concerns associated with mixed groups of vulnerable customers and vehicles being shared between school and community transport.

It is recommended that a further two mini bus services - the Out & About and Shoppers Bus continue, but that these would only be fully reintroduced when a sustained period of reduced Covid-19 transmission is achieved nationally.

Alternative transport provision for people who used the Blether Bus includes the commercial and supported public bus network and the Community Cars service, managed by Dundee Community Transport, which connects volunteer drivers and people with restricted mobility who require a door to door transport service.

Earlier this year the council agreed to subsidise six socially necessary but commercially uneconomic city bus services run by Xplore Dundee, Moffat and Williamson and Stagecoach East Scotland for an initial two years, at a net cost of around £240,000 a year.

According to figures collected before the pandemic more than 200,000 journeys were made on services supported by the council with an average subsidy per passenger trip of £1.10.

The city development committee meet on Monday (October 25).

Dundee City Council

Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.

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