Located 15 miles east of Edinburgh, Macmerry is “ideally situated” for travelling into the city, thanks to a “regular bus service,” states a brochure advertising one of the village’s more than 300 new builds.

Like many settlements in the Lothians – where population growth is well above Scotland’s national average – its boundary has expanded in the last decade to accommodate the increasing number of people who want to live close enough to the capital to enjoy its offerings, but far enough to avoid its eye-watering house prices.

More homes are under construction in Macmerry, and locals expect further development is on the way after a family farm on the edge of the historic mining village was recently put on the market.  

But new residents expecting regular and reliable public transport links to Auld Reekie will soon be left bitterly disappointed.

That’s because from next week, the number of daily direct buses travelling between Macmerry and Edinburgh will be cut from 35 to just three, with no service on the weekends. This is down from buses running every half hour on Mondays to Saturdays and hourly on Sundays currently. 

It’s a decision that the operator, East Coast Buses, says was based on “data and travel patterns,” but it has left the community rocked — and, one would imagine, property developers revising their brochures.

The dramatic scaling-back of the X6 service between Haddington and Edinburgh’s West End is also a bitter pill to swallow for bus users in the neighbouring village of Gladsmuir, which while being much smaller than Macmerry is set to see its population double if a proposed 26 new homes are approved.  

Sitting on a bench by a bus stop on Macmerry’s Main Road, Shirley McFadden, who’s lived in the village for 15 years, tells me: “I’ve not got a car so anywhere I go it’s got to be the bus, so now if I have to go to hospital it is three buses.

“It is a nightmare – Macmerry is an ageing community, we are all getting on and we rely on the buses. And the size of Macmerry with all the new houses and everything, I’ve no doubt they’re building some more. But if people haven’t got buses to get to work they’ll not come here.”

Bill Crawford, another local resident, chips in. “What they’re forgetting here is we’re a growing village; we’ve got a growing population, and we’ve got absolutely no direct bus service now,” he says.

“They should be putting service before profit, it’s a public bus service and the whole idea is to stop cars going into the City of Edinburgh – people can’t afford to park in Edinburgh now.”

News of the timetable’s butchering came like a bolt from the blue last month, following no consultation with the communities impacted — or even local councillors, it’s understood. ‘Big mistake’, ‘absolutely disgraceful’, and ‘shambles’ were among the hundreds of negative reactions to the story when the East Lothian Courier shared it on Facebook.


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It comes as part of a wider shake-up of the Lothian and East Coast Buses network, from which emerge clear winners and losers.

There will be more frequent X7 express services connecting Dunbar and Haddington with Edinburgh, while in addition to the X6 cuts Tranent will no longer be served by Lothian’s 26, which is being partially replaced by a new X4 service. The changes will disproportionately affect Edinburgh’s rural commuters, the elderly and people on lower incomes, who now face paying multiple fares and longer journeys into town. The 113, which serves Pencaitland village, Tranent and Musselburgh will no longer terminate at the Westen General, with only the reduced X6 picking up the demand, making hospital visits more cumbersome.

Alterations to the network are to be expected in response to demand. But the idea it’s all or nothing for the villages is one many are refusing to accept, especially at a time when encouraging people to drive less and instead utilise public transport is high up the political agenda. Not the least of which in Edinburgh, where the council hopes to reduce car kilometers travelled by 30% by 2030. 

“It’s terrible,” said John Robertson, who’s been a Macmerry resident for almost 50 years. “The X6 was the best bus for us, it got us to Edinburgh quicker. The council’s always promoting it saying houses in Macmerry have great bus services. It’s not fair on people working if they’re working late at night or early in the morning.”

While Fiona Carter said the changes will "severely impact" her ability to work. 

The 57-year-old said she suffered from several health issues including long Covid and the loss of a regular direct bus service to Edinburgh "is threatening to reduce my life even more". 

She said: "This is going to significantly treble the number of buses I have to catch, the cost of the journey and by the looks of it the time it will take me to get home."  

Independent Macmerry councillor Kenny McLeod said the move left the village’s 1,500 residents “snookered”.

He said: “Not everybody starts at 9am. I understand they have to do the best thing for their shareholders, but East Lothian Council are one of the shareholders.

(Image: Gordon Terris) Locals have been left "snookered" by the decision, a local councillor said“Why change a model if it’s working? If they can tell me something different, I’ll listen to them. But there’s not been any explanation, nothing, to say this is not working. I can’t see the logic behind cutting off the service, it’s bizarre to me.

“It’s come to the stage where there’s a lot of information I’m finding out second hand and even the council are not being told. If they had given six months’ notice and had a bit of consultation to get feedback then make a decision, instead of just axing them.”

A more diplomatic tone was struck by East Lothian’s Provost, Councillor John MacMillan, who as a “Macmerry boy myself” appreciates the enormity of the decision.

“We’ve got pretty positive communications with Lothian Buses through various structures,” he said. “I’m personally disappointed but they’ve made the decision on commercial grounds, and we just need to keep an eye on it, and we’ll keep pressing for whatever we can.

“They’ve made the decision based on data; that data is difficult to argue with and what we’re putting forward is the need for Macmerry to be there.

“That is the issue, use it or lose it, sadly.”

The logic is less clear for David Todd, chair of Macmerry and Gladsmuir Community Council. “It’s like somebody’s taken a spreadsheet with some figures and chucked it into ChatGPT, and that’s what’s come out,” he said.

“Now if I go into town, I can get one of the other available buses back to Tranent but I can’t get from Tranent to Macmerry if it’s after 10 o’clock.

“We did say to them that running the X7 through Macmerry would be a perfect solution and wouldn’t cause too much difference to your timetables, but they knocked that back and said ‘we’ve done our numbers and that’s not possible’.”

He argued that, despite being a wholly commercial operator, East Coast, as a subsidiary of the publicly-owned Lothian Buses, has a responsibility to ensure that communities are not cut off from the city.

Mr Todd said: “Even though it is a private firm, there is an expectation there should be a service provided and yes, certain routes have to maybe have to be subsidised but going from a massively well-serviced route right the way down to virtually nothing screams of somebody just pulling the plug and purely looking at numbers and not the impact of what it is.

“Residents are dismayed, they’re the people who use the services for running in and out to Edinburgh. They’re now having to pay more to get to the same place.

“For those who are affluent, having to drive and do stuff is not an issue; of course as is the case when you cut services it’s those at the lower end of the income scales who get hit hardest.”
 

Macmerry Macmerry will be left with three buses direct to Edinburgh each day, down from 35, and the cuts will see no services running on weekends (Image: Gordon Terris) For Greig Mackay of Bus Users UK, this is a sign of things to come. “I think we will see more of this in the future,” he said.

This follows a loss of 1,400 registered bus routes across Scotland since 2006, representing a 44% reduction, according to analysis published last year by Scottish Labour.

“The vast majority of bus passengers now travel for free at the point of use through the concession schemes, so therefore in terms of actual fare-paying passengers there isn’t a significant number anymore across Scotland – and that’s where the operators have to make tough decisions," Mr Mackay said.

“Peripheral services that are semi-rural are not seeing significant patronage increases and that’s a problem.

"Subsiding less commercially viable routes is a potential solution, however local authorities just do not have spare funds in order to do that. 

“That’s where we’re going to see reductions across the country, because local transport budgets across all local authorities has got less.

“We need a rethink in terms of how public transport is funded. Yes, the commercial operators are entitled to make their decisions based on what’s best for them in terms of patronage levels, of course, however the flip side of that is the local authorities need to have robust budgets in place so that when situations like this happen they put a contract out for a minimum level of service to make sure communities have connections.

“And until local authorities have ring-fenced public transport budgets, we’re only going to be in this situation and people are going to be left in transport poverty situations where they’ve got no connections, no direct bus services, or they’ve got very infrequent bus services.

“Loads of people have part-time jobs, loads of people work weekends, loads of people still need to move around on the weekends. So for us it’s very disappointing that there’s no partnership working to look for alternatives. They’ve made their decision and there doesn’t seem to be any significant community engagement or dialogue to try and look for alternative solutions.”


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Mr Mackay said that, given the strength of opposition, he didn’t think the changes will hold. “It’s just too significant a change, I think to go from 35 to three is not acceptable, to have no service on a Saturday, no I’m sorry, there needs to be a minimum level of service on a Saturday.

“I would be surprised if there’s not some sort of short notice registration change in the coming weeks because of all this backlash. I’ve seen the comments – Lothian is getting real negative feedback on this. It’s not good publicity for them.”

The Herald requested an interview with East Coast Buses however no one was available.

A spokesperson for the operator said they “appreciate the concerns raised amongst some communities,” and would “continue to monitor the network once these changes are implemented”.

A statement said: “East Coast Buses is committed to delivering reliable, accessible and cost-effective bus services for customers across East Lothian and this network review will see increased frequencies and improved reliability across the county.

 “As a wholly commercial operator, our decision to implement changes to our services is driven by analysis of data and travel patterns, as well creating the necessary capacity for growth across East Lothian.

 “Working closely with East Lothian Council, we have been awarded contracts to operate supported services 120, 121 and 123 which will bring improved connectivity across the wider network.

 “Our range of ticket products continue to provide excellent value for money, and from the 6th April our app ticket-bundles are available for as little as £2.85 per day across the county.”