Free Bus Service Axe Cost is "Reasonable"

Today I received correspondence from Cllr. Allan Steele MBE, (Liberal Democrats) - Merrylea Park, in response to a letter I sent to our MSP, Mr Ken Macintosh, and copied to all Councilors.
To his credit Cllr. Steele is the only respondent so far (apart from Cllr. Shaw who I was informed is not available due to illness) and agreed to the publication of his reply. His view is personal but seems fairly representative of many of the Councilors supporting this cut from the information I have received from parents.

A summary of his points are:

1. Although he voted for the package of cuts there was no details of the cut package at the time.
2. Bus services are not being withdrawn, merely some parents will now have to pay.
3. Quote - "It appears that per pupil a £5 per week transport charge is being made. Personally I think this is reasonable. Obviously in the case of hardship, such charges would be waived."
4. The cuts are due to lack of finance from the Scottish Executive. - This partly the reason was writing to the MSP Mr. Macintosh (Andy Slater)

It would be interesting to hear your comments.

ERC School Bus Campaign First News Letter

ERC School Bus Campaign

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update to let you know that hopefully Alex Robertson, a BBC Scotland journalist, will be attending the Council meeting on 4th April and he hopes to do an article on the situation. It'd be great if we could get as many people as possible to attend to really make our point to the Council, and hopefully get some coverage from this.

Aditionally I've attached a PDF of a letter Cllr Frank McGee sent out to everyone who'd been at the initial St. Ninians meeting. My apologies if you've received a copy of this but it does no harm making sure everyone else has seen it. Cllr McGee is happy for me to make this and any other communication from him publicly available.

Finally ( for now ! ) please take a look at this site ( http://saveourbuses.blogspot.com/ ) which has lots of great information regarding the decision on it. The site owner Andy & I have teamed up to hopefully be able to inform and update as many parents, pupils and residents as possible on the latest news and events. And please remember to tell as many people as you can about our campaign - not just other parents, but we want to involve all ERC residents who'll be affected by increased traffic and who are concerned about pupil safety.Tell them all to e-mail us, and to visit Andy's great site.

Remember - no risk assessments at all have been done by ERC on how this decision will affect our childrens safety, our already high congestion, and the impact this will have on literally thousands of people who pay dearly to live in ERC.

Best regards, and let's do all we can to get this ridiculous, ill-founded decision totally reversed.

Dave.-- Please let as many people as possible know about this Campaign!http:saveourbuses.blogspot.com is another site with information - please visit it!

Email Newsletter Available

To keep up to date with what is happening there is now an email newsletter to make sure you don't miss anything.

Send an email to ERC School Buses (ercbuses@googlemail.com) requesting to be included.

S.T.A.G. Is born

A letter from Cllr. Frank McGee arrived today informing of a new group being formed to spearhead the issue of the bus service withdrawal.

It has been christened School Transport Action Group (STAG). Very snappy.

This group will be co-ordinated by Cllr McGee and consists of concerned parents from affected schools. There has also been a similar group formed in Barrhead with the same aims. Information on the Barrhead group is currently scarce.

There is at least one comment posted on the What is Going On? article confirming some of this news.

Email the site or post comments to keep us all abreast of what is going on.

Contacting Councillors

One of the ways of getting our voice heard is by contacting the relevant people. The links on the right hand side of the page will take you to East Renfreshire Council contacts pages.

Cllr James Fletcher the council leader is one of those whose ward is not greatly affected by this decision (only a few pupils in his ward will lose the bus service). Other wards have hundreds of pupils affected. Unfortunately Cllr Fletcher did not attend the meeting to answer questions. In fact none of the Councilors who voted in favour of this cut attended.

We can all email, phone, write and attend surgeries (times available through the links on the right of the page) to those who voted in favour to voice our concerns.

Click here for Cllr. James Fletcher's contact page to get you going.

I will try and get the full list of who voted for and against this cut and post the information as soon as I can.

What is Going on?

A public meeting was held on 23/03/06 at St. Ninians High School by Cllr Frank McGee due to the overwhelming response he received once this decision became public.

Parents from all over East Renfrewshire attended even though the meeting was not well publicised. Cllr McGee and many of his colleagues believe that this decision is wrong as well as the parents. Unfortunately not many of parents' questions were answered at the meeting but the level of opposition to the decision was made very clear by all.

A resolve was made at the end of the meeting to work together to make ourselves heard by those in the Council who can do something.

This site aims to provide the information we all need to do this. All contributions of information are welcome.

Council Meeting Tues 4th April 7:00pm

There is to be a Council Meeting on Tuesday the 4th of April at Eastwood Park in the building immediately to your right as you enter the park at 7:00pm.

Many parents intend to be there to highlight the overwhelming objections to this cut. The more people that attend the louder and clearer the message to the Council will be.

Another way to make our voice louder.

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Welcome

Save our Buses! has the simple aim of helping to reverse the East Renfrewshire Council decision to axe the free bus service to 1100 of our Primary School pupils and replace it with a pay for service.
As many people as possible need to send letters, emails, phone and attend surgeries of the Councilors who made this decision.

Start by clicking here to email Council Leader Cllr James Fletcher.