Viking Bus Station

[peenk]

You really are a bunch of idiots (save this save that petition) the bottom line is SIC is heading for insolvency .

So instead of putting so much work into protest try putting work into ideas to get out of this mess,

[owre-weel]

You really are a bunch of idiots,

 

And to whom may you be referring

[tlady]

Now pay off the chap who though up the original closure plan and save another 40 grand a year.

 

[MuckleJoannie]

thought business rate went to central goverment and then some were payed back

 

That is correct.

[Scorrie]

You really are a bunch of idiots (save this save that petition) the bottom line is SIC is heading for insolvency .

So instead of putting so much work into protest try putting work into ideas to get out of this mess,

 

Lead by example, then.

[Colin]

You really are a bunch of idiots (save this save that petition) the bottom line is SIC is heading for insolvency .

So instead of putting so much work into protest try putting work into ideas to get out of this mess,

 

I'm afraid that YOU (by your own definition) are an 'idiot'.

If you bothered to read this thread properly then, you would have seen quite a few suggestions put forward.

 

BACK ON TOPIC

I also think, that as penance for his hopelessly inadequate submission to the SIC on Friday morning, that a certain Mr Crossland should be forced to use Public Transport for the next 6 months and, that the person who actually came up with the figures should be sacked as they are, demonstrably, useless.

[Colin]

yes they do. dont even ask what they are paying to have scalloway school empty. this could have been cut in half with a few sheets of ply bet its not been done yet.

 

Do you pay rates on 'empty' business premisses ?

[Colin]

It would seem that, from Yesterdays meeting, our councillors are finally seeing through the rubbish ideas presented to them as savings and, who knows, maybe a few of them realise that the only way to save any real money will be to bite the bullet and offload some staff.

 

So far, we have only seen the people who actually do some work taking a hit.

eg. Scalloway no longer has a Street Cleaner and it shows. If he School was still at full capacity, the place would look like a tip...

 

To my eyes, the two most bloated departments are Education and Social Work and I would suggest that quite a few could go from there with little or no difference to the services(?) provided.

[Staney Dale]

The management layer was slashed over a year ago if you remember. I am fairly sure admin staff have been slashed too. It is about time the SIC did more to demonstrate this, if they want to be credible.

 

I imagine the very process of making cuts and carrying out all these reviews is taking up a big part of the admin and management time at the moment. But where is the tipping point when you lose a service to pay for the cost of reviewing it? We have maybe just about reached it.

[MuckleJoannie]

yes they do. dont even ask what they are paying to have scalloway school empty. this could have been cut in half with a few sheets of ply bet its not been done yet.

 

Do you pay rates on 'empty' business premisses ?

 

You don't if they are completely empty and can't be accessed. I enquired about getting the rates taken off a large building that was only partly used. To satisfy all the bureaucratic requirements would have required a concrete block wall to the roof that would have ended up costing more than the rates saved.

[BigMouth]

snip...

So far, we have only seen the people who actually do some work taking a hit.

eg. Scalloway no longer has a Street Cleaner and it shows. If he School was still at full capacity, the place would look like a tip...

snip...

 

Perhaps the good folk of Scalloway stop littering their streets?

[Staney Dale]

So - it's up for sale, in today's paper. Preference 'might' be given to a buyer who still lets the public into part of it, for a price. What kind of county town can't provide a bus station? We are a laughing stock, and tourists will be mystified. I have elderly relatives who depend on the bus and freight service, and the managers and councillors have no understanding of how it is for folk on a low income.

[sheltie53]

We are being pushed back at least 30 years, how much can a small bus station really cost to operate given the financial input to create such a facility which is a point already flogged to death.

 

If shetland cannot afford a simple bus station we are in trouble OR is this the prefered signal to the public !!!

 

Yes the income from Sullom Voe has decreased but a new gas plant is being built which we were all assured would never happen as emissions could be harmfull Please tell SHETLAND that Shetland can expect some

income from this new installation.

 

Has sustainable Shetland focused on a very narrow polictically self promoting and anti windmill theam and completly missed the real danger.

[Colin]

So - it's up for sale, in today's paper. Preference 'might' be given to a buyer who still lets the public into part of it, for a price. What kind of county town can't provide a bus station? We are a laughing stock, and tourists will be mystified. I have elderly relatives who depend on the bus and freight service, and the managers and councillors have no understanding of how it is for folk on a low income.

 

That's the problem with the bureaucratic mind set. Once they get an idea and it gets knocked back, the wrap it up a little differently and present it another way. They never let go.

 

If the SIC really need to save money that badly, why don't they sack some of the 'overheads' that dream these things up?

 

Councillors and officials (mostly officials) need to be reminded that we, the great unwashed public, pay our taxes (and their wages) in order to receive a service that meets our needs. Handing the Viking Bus Station to some private individual(?) who might, or might not, allow travelers to continue to use it and who might, or might not, charge said travelers for the privilege is ****** nonsense. The man that dreamed this one up very probably hasn't used a bus in years.

[Staney Dale]

This 'saves' £80k. Meantime, highly paid managers mess up and keep coining it in. Note our 'overhead' costs:

 

"One of the areas on which the Improvement Service data focuses is how much a council spends on overheads – such as finance, IT, legal and administrative services. In 2011/12, the average spend on support services as a percentage of total expenditure ranged from 2.7% in Inverclyde, to 7.8% in Shetland and 7.5% in Perth and Kinross, with an overall Scottish average of 4.8%.

 

The figures also show the figure associated with corporate and democratic costs – which include councillors' expenses and allowances, the chief executive office and providing information to the public – varies from £11,444 per 1000 population in North Lanarkshire to £383,911 in Shetland. The highest cost among councils in the mainland is in Renfrewshire at £51,902."

 

Full article here: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/austerity-scotland.21116271

We might be ready to accept we can't have a bus, a pee, and a place to wait out of the rain if there weren't still a lot of managers with their noses well in the trough.