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Fife public transport branded ‘bonkers’ as school buses run during strike while others are cut

Services have been reduced during the strike - but not school buses, despite pupils being off.

school strikes bus shambles
A picket line at Beath High School, Cowdenbeath. Image: UNISON

Changes to bus services in Fife during school strikes – including reducing some routes but running school buses – have been branded “complete madness”.

Fife Council has given bus operators to cut some services during strike action from September 26-28, but school routes have not been included.

The move has caused confusion among public transport users but the authority says the council is “paying for the school buses regardless”.

The buses are contracted to provide school services but can also be used by fare-paying members of the public.

It comes as as schools in Fife are closed due to some non-teaching staff striking over pay.

Fife bus situation is ‘bonkers’

The situation has been described as “bonkers” by prominent Fife resident David Hamilton.

Mr Hamilton was formerly chairman of the Scottish Police Federation and is now Scotland’s Information Commissioner.

“It’s utterly bonkers, complete madness,” he said.

“Fife Council is continuing to run buses with no pupils to schools that are on strike.

Fife bus shambles
A picket line at Burntisland Primary School. Image: UNISON

“Meantime the local authority has reduced the number of buses operating because of the strike action in Fife – telling people instead to use the Go-Flexi bus service.

“Unfortunately, no-one has told Go-Flexi who refused to take a passenger I tried to book on for Wednesday.

“They said this was because they couldn’t take a booking because they are tied up doing school contracts for pupils.

“That will be for pupils who won’t be going to school.”

He added: “I can’t see the sense in this.

“For one thing they are not able to provide a service to the public but there is also an environmental issue in that they are continuing to run school buses that are not needed, causing unnecessary use of fuel and also pollution through emissions.”

Fife Council: ‘School buses are operating’

Tony McRae, the council’s service manager for passenger transport services, said the decision was made to avoid confusion.

“The main reason for this is that fare paying passengers can and do use these services and we wanted to avoid any confusion for the travelling public as to whether registered local services which normally only operate on a school day would run,” he said.

“We therefore took the decision to operate all of the school services although we were happy to allow operators to reduce the number of buses operating along a route if they requested this, providing, they catered for any fare payers.

“Contractually the council is paying for the school buses regardless of whether they operate or not so it gave us the assurance that if the strike is/was cancelled at short notice operators were already geared up to operate.”

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