Lollipop staff and cut-price buses under threat in council budget cuts
dailyrecord.co.ukScrapping subsidised bus services, getting rid of lollipop staff and charging people to collect garden waste are among budget-cutting proposals set to go before councillors.The wide reaching cutbacks have been proposed by council officers to help meet the budget shortfall of £47.6 million over the next five yearsOver 109 pages of detailed proposals went before councillors last week after responses from the recent public consultation ran to 1,300 pages.Removal of subsidised buses, which are not statutory to provide, would bring savings of almost £2m over three years.The revised passenger transport strategy would also alter qualification for school buses - cutting the current generous West Lothian allowance which is three miles for secondary children and two miles for those under eight to the statutory minimum, which is two miles and 1.5 miles.The revised strategy would also see the scrapping of rail concessions.The proposals, put before the public in the weeks before Christmas, attracted more than 7000 comments, second only to the 8000 plus made on education.Officials summed up some of the responses to the proposals, stating: “Some respondents feel that the bus services are already infrequent and unreliable and that this proposal will exacerbate this problem for communities”.And on school transport they found: “Some respondents feel that this proposal will result in an unfair financial burden with parents required to transport their children in place of the bus.”Cutting out crossing patrols, better known as Lollipop men and women, was another proposal, and would see 24 FTE jobs go to save £475,000 over three years.
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