Community Spirit Meeting

I was at the Community Spirit Action Group's meeting tonight. Community Spirit does excellent work in the northern part of the West End ward. Tonight there was a very interesting presentation about the next stage of Dundee Travel Active's work. They are promising to cut petrol costs by 100% (by getting people walking and cycling!). There is a range of information on their website which highlight how to save money from fuel costs.

The main issue which local residents raised with me at the meeting was their continuing concerns about changes to the bus service in this area. It is now very difficult to use buses in this area. There are no buses to Lochee in this area, many people who live in Tullideph, Ancrum, Pentland and Benvie Road areas want to shop in Lochee or go to their doctor in Lochee. One women in her 80s told me of having to get two buses to get to Lochee or having to walk in order to visit her doctor.

I am clear that neither National Express Dundee nor Stagecoach think that they are delivering a public service instead they are only looking to deliver profitable routes. Indeed they look at each route in Dundee as an individual business they do not see that they should cross-subsidise services with a social need. This calls for the re-regulation of bus services in my opinion and I will continue to press for this from the Scottish Government.

The City Council Administration has also created problems by creating subsidised services which seem destined to failure because it appears that these services do not serve the needs of the people of Dundee and the people of the West End in particular.