What the fate of the Number 15 bus says about Lothian Buses – John McLellan

The effort that Lothian Buses has put into building up its Lothian Motorcoaches offshoot to take on commercial tour operators contrasts with changes to the core Number 15 service to Penicuik, with the withdrawal of weekend services well documented.

Lothian Buses' managing director, Richard Hall. Picture: Michael Gillen

But as of July 14 it is also planning to truncate the route at the other end, stopping at Waterloo Place and no longer serving Lochend and the Findlays, including the newly-built flats on the site of the old Eastern General.

Connecting areas like the Findlays, with its high proportion of elderly residents, is what Lothian Buses is there to do, not getting embroiled in battles with tour operators or fighting a turf war with First Group in West Lothian.

I’ve written to the managing director, Richard Hall, to ask why this service cannot be reinstated.

A Cherry on top

Fast becoming Unionism’s best friend is Edinburgh South West’s SNP MSP Joanna Cherry who, only a day after Unionists were encouraged to participate in a new Citizens’ Assembly, described it as “the perfect way” to move Scotland towards independence.

Blown out the water as a result was ex-Labour MEP David Martin who has been roped in to co-convene the gathering and had spent Monday arguing that the new assembly was not just an SNP stunt and appealed to Unionists to get involved. If it’s ok, David, we’ll leave you to chat to Joanna about independence while Labour’s reputation for becoming unreliable on the constitution continues to grow.

Bunker mentality

A wail of woe went up from the Green corner in the City Chambers last week when Conservative Councillor Cameron Rose and I moved “no action” on a motion to sign Edinburgh up to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ cities appeal.

The ICAN initiative is a unilateral demand when Conservative policy is to support multi-lateral disarmament and anyone surprised by our opposition to such a move must have been living in a bunker for the last 30 years.