Edinburgh Sucks! | Teflon Don stating the ‘bleedin obvious’

Andrew Burns

Teflon Don stating the ‘bleedin obvious’

By The Basa ⋅ July 14, 2005 ⋅

Bleedin' Idiot stating the bleedin' obvious “My advice to travellers is to plan ahead, anticipate some busier bus journeys and, on strike days, look at alternative means of transport.”

This is the word from our less-than-illustrious leader today. With not one word coming from his sidekick, transport ’supremo’ Bumbling Andrew Burns. What happend to Burns, who spent more than £8 million on a transport referendum. Would this have paid for the drivers requested increase?

Anderson has been spouting a lot of spin today on the looming bus crisis but in addition to stating the - bleedin’obvious - ‘ he omits quite a few facts which are quite relevant and he also doesn’t deny the figures by a driver in the Evening News yesterday (click here) which we covered yesterday.

“The five per cent offer is higher than the rate of inflation and more than the pay rise given to local government workers. No-one wants a fare increase in the city to pay for a wage increase.”

What he doesn’t mention is that he has slapped the city with inflation-busting council tax rises FOR YEARS. He doesn’t mention that councillors are in line for a 250% pay rise according to Lord Sewell’s report - and a golden goodbye of £30,000 if they decide to stand down before the next elections in 2007.

He doesn’t mention that the bus company could just cut their profits instead of increasing the fares. Don’t WE own the bus company? A final point that fits in here is that Ministers, whose £6bn a year grant to councils makes up 80% of their income, point out that they are handing local authorities a 5.5% cash increase next year - way ahead of inflation.

“Two new park and ride services, at Hermiston and Ingliston, were due to open this week but these will now be delayed indefinitely because this looks like being a lengthy dispute.”

This means that the bus company totally depends on the goodwill of drivers to do overtime to run the city’s bus service which is intended to take residents to work and back each day - it is the legal responsibility of the Council to supply us with a transport service which meets our needs. This scenario is in turn confirmed by Lothian Buses:

“Running a Saturday service means we don’t need as many drivers as the service levels are slightly lower on a Saturday, compared to a Monday to Friday. Thus, we can provide a full Saturday service without any overtime working.”

Further, Anderson and Burns have also not been forthcoming about what would have happened if we had congestion charging during this possible lengthy dispute - how much would the charge backs cost the council in administrative costs?

It is obvious that Burns is now totally out of his depth. The transport system in Edinburgh sucks. The leader of the council will not replace the man responsible, in fact when everyone thought that he would take decisive action he just promoted 4 of his buddies which we reported on here - Donald Anderson just doesn’t have the balls.

More Info: Free parking plan to beat city bus strike