Lothian announces changes to festive bus services

In light of the Scottish Government announcement regarding large scale events and the cancellation of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, Lothian, Lothian Country and East Coast Buses will be making some changes to our planned routes and timetables for the 30, 31 December and 1 January.

On Thursday 30 December, we will be operating a Saturday service. All diversions for the Torchlight procession have now been cancelled and bus services will operate normal routes.

On Friday 31 December, we will operate a Saturday service, finishing earlier than normal with last journeys through the city centre at approximately 2130.

On the morning of 1 January 2022, we will no longer be operating our special Hogmanay Night Service. We understand that some customers may be disappointed, however with the cancellation of the Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Street party and the latest advice from the Scottish Government, we do not anticipate sufficient demand for these night services.

As we highlighted this week, we are also continuing to be impacted by the pandemic in regards to team resource which is placing considerable pressure on our operations and therefore it is vital we continue to focus on providing critical links across Edinburgh and the Lothians.

Customers are reminded to allow extra time for their journeys and to plan before they travel through our website or our app. Updated data can be found from the 29 December on the Traveline Scotland website.

Our updated Christmas and New Year timetable is available here. You can also read more about our festive timetables here.

Thanks to all of our customers for their patience and understanding, and a massive thank you to all of our colleagues who continue to react and adapt to this ever-changing fluid situation.

Wishing you all a great Christmas and New Year.

Revised schedule for City Plan

A report outlining a revised timetable for the City of Edinburgh Council’s City Plan 2030 will be now be considered by councillors on Wednesday, 10 March.

The report, which will be made public on Thursday (4 March), will say that the proposed plan will now be considered by councillors in the summer with the preference being for a committee in August.

The proposed plan was due to be considered by the Planning Committee this month but Scottish Environment Protection Agency was subject to a significant cyber attack just before Christmas which is still affecting its services.

This is having an impact on work on the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment required for the proposed plan as well as many other matters.

The proposed plan was originally due to be considered by councillors in December but disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic has led to some technical reports not being fully completed

Cllr Neil Gardiner, Planning Convener, said: “The proposed plan will be ambitious and will help us build a more sustainable future as the Capital grows in the coming years. When complete, the proposed plan needs to be robust and not open to challenge on the credibility of the flood risk evidence, which is why we need to postpone its completion.

“I have every sympathy with SEPA and the challenges they are experiencing as a result of this incident and appreciate they are rightly focusing at the moment on immediate risks of flooding or significant breaches of the other regulatory responsibilities they have.”