SCOTLAND’S campaign for better buses continued to grow today as anti-poverty groups, environmentalists and trade unions joined forces to launch new regional campaigns ahead of next year’s local elections. 

Campaigners in Strathclyde, Tayside and the north-east are ramping up pressure ahead of May’s council vote, calling for candidates to commit to using new powers for public control and ownership of bus services in their manifestos.

Prior to the pandemic, bus passenger journeys in Tayside and the north-east fell by a quarter in the last five years, while in south-west Scotland and Strathclyde they fell by 12 per cent.