THE chief executive of McGill's insists the company had no choice but to axe some local routes and has criticised a local councillor on the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport body.

Company boss Ralph Roberts insists the move to withdraw some services locally is ‘as disappointing to McGill’s as it is to SPT’.

The bus operator caused controversy when it announced plans to remove services, including the 540 from Clynder Road and the X22 to Clydebank, citing rising costs and the retraction of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 recovery funding.

Earlier this week, the Tele reported that SPT had awarded temporary contracts to cover some routes.

But Councillor David Wilson, chair of the SPT operations committee, also said the move was not a sufficient long-term solution and that SPT could not continue to step in to cover withdrawn services.

Greenock Telegraph: Councillor David WilsonCouncillor David Wilson (Image: Newsquest)

Mr Roberts says a number of reasons are behind the decision taken by McGill's and highlighted Cllr Wilson's role.

He said: “No one is to ‘blame’ for this unfortunate set of events. Just like SPT and any local authority, we have to balance our expenditure with our income. 

“Mr Wilson clearly forgets that the deep-rooted issues in the bus industry in Inverclyde are mostly of his own making. 

“In spite of regular requests from McGill’s, we have seen a lack of bus priority being installed, a lack of parking controls making housing schemes no-go areas for larger vehicles and a lack of roadwork and congestion management.

“These key factors plus a backdrop of depopulation, de-industrialisation and a step change in mobility habits leave me dismayed that Councillor Wilson thinks the solution is held within the 2019 Transport (Scotland) Act. Local authorities already have the powers to deal with these factors. 

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“Lastly, the dichotomy of thinking that believes it is perfectly acceptable for a public body to have budgetary constraints, but not a private company to have them, leaves me in awe of the mental agility at play here."

Mr Roberts said the company could not afford to keep all of the services going.

He said: “McGill’s has worked extremely hard to minimise the impact to the travelling public of this financial issue coming out of Covid. Regrettably though, we were unable to mitigate fully the impacts.” 

SPT's temporary contracts will cover services including the X22 from Port Glasgow to Clydebank, 543 from Nicolson Street, and 507 from Trumpethill to Greenock.