Dumbiedykes residents meeting tonight to save their bus service

There will be a meeting this evening at Braidwood Community Centre to try and save the number 6 bus service.

This service, usually a single deck bus, loops from Hanover Street to The Scottish Parliament and back by way of Holyrood Road next to Dumbiedykes.

It is the only service which goes anywhere near all the homes at Dumbiedykes and Lothian Buses have said that it will have to end.

The meeting takes place tonight at 6pm at the Braidwood Centre. It is organised by Dumbiedykes Residents Association (DRA) and Braidwood Centre Management Committee.

Jim Slaven is Chair of the DRA. He told us: “The number 6 was never a perfect replacement for the previous bus service which was cut. It does not even go into Dumbiedykes so how was it going to get people to where they wanted to go? There’s been no consultation on the number 6 service. There is now no community shop as it has closed or even a doctor’s surgery. If anyone living here wants to get any services they have to leave Dumbiedykes. Anyone with mobility issues and pensioners will all be isolated. We already told Lothian Buses and the council that the number 6 did not go where people needed to go. We are talking about community need and this is the final straw. We should have a bus service in the same way as other communities. If this was any other area of Edinburgh it would not be happening.”

All local politicians have been issued with an invitation to the meeting tonight. Ruth Davidson and Tommy Sheppard have already written to Lothian Buses on behalf of residents who have also engaged with the university and local businesses.

A spokesperson for Lothian said: “Due to very low levels of customer demand on the Service 6 the route has unfortunately never covered its operating costs since being introduced in June 2014, and has always operated at significant financial loss. 

“In recent years, we have tried to reduce losses by curtailing lightly used journeys and withdrawing the Sunday service.  However, with operating costs continuing to rise, the losses being incurred are no longer sustainable and very disappointingly, we have had to take the decision to withdraw the service.” 

City Centre councillor, Joanna Mowat, said: “I shall be at the meeting and am very disappointed that this community has seen its bus service cut again.

“This is a vital service for the community and this will be the second time I have been involved in trying to secure them a sustainable bus service for the future.  Combined with the reduction in service of the 35 during the summer last year the communities at the bottom of the Old Town are ill served and this makes a mockery of the council’s ambitions to reduce car traffic and encourage public transport when services are being cut.”