Politics: Improved rail links in the north-east are vital for communities

During recess, my office team and I spent a great deal of time criss-crossing the coast meeting with constituents and local businesses and offering assistance and support on a myriad of issues, writes MSP Karen Adam.

During Easter recess, we visited a number of organisations who had received Scottish Government funding and it’s great to see our north-east corner benefitting from a number of Scottish Government funding programmes, including the Just Transition Fund.

Now that I am back in Parliament, I am taking many of the issues I discussed with constituents to the Chamber. Foremost on the agenda is transport.

On Thursday, I participated in a debate on the need for new railway stations north of the Central Belt.

I will never tire of plugging the work of the Campaign for North East Rail in the Scottish Parliament. And the campaign group is another example of a local organisation who has been supported by the Scottish Government which awarded them £250,000 from the Just Transition Fund for their feasibility study to explore the possibility of passenger and freight services running north of Dyce and onwards to Peterhead and Fraserburgh for the first time in more than half a century.

As we eagerly await the findings of the feasibility study, I am preparing to question the Transport Secretary this week on how we can best support the campaign to reverse the Beeching cuts and reconnect our coast to the railway.

From trains to bus services. Following my public meeting and survey on bus services across Buchan, I also met with representatives of Stagecoach to discuss the ongoing issues faced by my constituents regarding transport links in the north-east.

The operations director and engineering director for Stagecoach North Scotland, and the operations manager for Buchan, all took time out of their busy schedules to hear the concerns of my constituents and I appreciate their commitment to continue to engage with my office to ensure that these concerns - particularly regarding communication, reliability and punctuality - are remedied.

During our meeting, representatives from Stagecoach highlighted the issues they had been facing in recent months as a result of adverse weather warnings.

I highlighted that a number of my constituents had complaints that precede these weather warnings and the operations director reassured me that Stagecoach were on an incline in terms of reliability and punctuality.

I raised my constituents' exasperation at the complaints and communication processes at Stagecoach and impressed upon the representatives the significant importance of reliable and punctual transport and consistent communication when inevitable delays or cancellations occur.

I know, from responses to my survey, the many real-life consequences faced by my constituents in their work, education and even in their healthcare when transport links are unreliable.

I am reassured that Stagecoach are taking these complaints seriously and have agreed to review the responses of my survey.

Where my office can be of further assistance, we will work with Stagecoach to ensure complaints are treated with care and in good time.

And we are keen to work with Stagecoach to find solutions to informing my constituents of delayed or cancelled services beyond the existing methods of Twitter and Traveline.

If you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact my office at karen.adam.msp@parliament.scot