A bus company has been criticised for withdrawing evening services from a residential area of Perth.
Councillor Willie Wilson hit out at Stagecoach, claiming a route has been “slashed”, resulting in the last journey being available at 7pm.
He said this will mean that if residents in the Burghmuir and Letham areas living on or near the number 10 route wish to go to the city centre they must travel to Rannoch Road or Viewlands Road West.
Mr Wilson said: “It means that people who want to go to Perth Concert Hall, church activities, events at Perth Art Gallery and Museum and AK Bell Library, the cinema and social events can’t do so unless they use a taxi to gain access to the city centre after 7pm.
“It is all very well to say that people can use the number seven, number one or number two buses, but the reality is that these can be nearly a mile from some of the worst affected areas.
“In addition to this, the whole of the area is steeply sloping and many elderly or infirm folk just find it impossible to negotiate the hills on Burghmuir or Letham.
“These bus cuts are severely damaging our city’s reputation as a small vibrant European city.”
Mr Wilson says he feels Stagecoach want the council to pump money into lightly-used services in the evening instead of seriously considering cross-subsidising themselves from income received from well-used services during the day.
“The company makes a huge profit and could easily afford to run these buses in the evening,” he added.
Andrew Jarvis, managing director of Stagecoach East Scotland, said the decision was made due to “very low usage” of certain evening journeys.
“We were disappointed that more people did not use these journeys since the announcement earlier this year that they were at risk and we are grateful for all the assistance Councillor Wilson gave personally to trying to increase the number of people on the threatened journeys,” he said.
“It is inevitable that busy buses during the day will help sustain quieter journeys at other times of the day and we do take a holistic view when planning services.
“However, the number of people travelling on the withdrawn journeys was so low that the fares did not even cover the wages of the driver, never mind any other costs.”