DIAL-A-COMMUNITY BUS
NEWS
2006
Debate in the Scottish Parliament 15/03/06
Report by Rachel Milne; Co-ordinator
On 15th March 2006 a motion for a debate was
raised in the Scottish Parliament by Banff and Buchan MSP Stewart
Stevenson
The motion read;
“That the Parliament congratulates the Banffshire Partnership
and the Buchan Dial-a-Community Bus who provide an essential
transport service in areas with virtually no public transport;
notes that transport problems faced by many people in rural
communities lead to many forms of exclusion; further notes that
at present the national concessionary travel scheme does not
encompass transport out with conventional services, and hopes
that the formation of Transport Scotland will enable new ideas
to be implemented to tackle the problem of rural transport”
Since we were instrumental in getting Stewart
Stevenson interested in this topic and we were mentioned in
the motion I felt that we should be present to hear the debate.
So on Wednesday Alan Brown (Director) and I
travelled to Edinburgh and went to the Hub (where the Parliament
has been relocated to temporarily) to watch our very first Debate.
I have to say that I was expecting to be bored,
but the opposite happened; I found myself energised and excited
by the entire procedure.
Community Transport as a whole and Dial-a-Community Bus and
the A2B services received so many compliments and kudos that
I was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat by the end of
the allotted hour of debate.
After end of business, Stewart Stevenson kindly
introduced us to Tavish Scott; the Minister of Transport and
several other MSPs.
We had a brisk discussion about a couple of points that the
MoT had made and I hope that I clarified some issues.
We were also able to thank several MSPs for their support including
Shiona Baird who had been extremely persuasive in her arguments.
Alan and I were lucky enough to go for a very quick drink with
Stewart Stevenson, Rob Gibson, Richard Lochead and Fergus Ewing
afterwards where we continued the discussions before having
to hurry to catch the train back to Aberdeen.
I have attached the link to the transcript
of the debate to this report and would urge everyone to read
it.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliamentt/or-06/sor0315-02.htm#Col24035
All in all it was time extremely well spent
in Edinburgh and did a lot to raise the profile of both Dial-a-Community
Bus and Community Transport as a whole, while highlighting the
issue of concessionary fares.
