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Viking Bus Station


dead mans hand
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I think your maybe right, they have shed a tone of people at the edges of the council, but even with less staf to manage the white hoose is still full of people managing people that are not there anymore, ie salleries and personel? how many jobs have gone from there? middle managers are craping the barrels to find savings and cuts that we the customers will feel by the loss of services, however if the guys above them relised it might be the top managers that need to go.

 

On subject if the viking was made into a coffee shop and waiting room then it might be a good going business, its on an excelent locating for passing trade that might welcome a cup of tea while waiting for a bus.

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On subject if the viking was made into a coffee shop and waiting room then it might be a good going business, its on an excelent locating for passing trade that might welcome a cup of tea while waiting for a bus.

 

There is one just 30 seconds up the road "Emma-Louise's" and there is "Mareel" so there would be no need for it to provide such facilities.

 

Having said that, I feel the Viking Bus Station is very important and should remain open. I am a driver and very rarely use buses but on the few occasions I do it has been to get from North to the airport for a flight to hospital. This meaning I either couldn't drive to the airport or had to expect not to be able to drive home from airport.

 

The buses from north to south do not link up well, nor do they link in anyway to flights so i was very grateful to sit for 2 hours in the warmth reading a book whilst waiting for the next bus. What business would let you sit for two hours reading a book? If i owned a business I wouldn't let a customer sit with luggage and so on for hours over a cuppa - nor would i think i could afford to!

 

Its unfair on the people who use the buses to the max. Not everyone can go and spend money to stay warm in another businesses location.

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You put it very well, Pringle84. When I think of people I know, trailing up and down to the airport for hospital visits, the price of coffee in a cafe being what they'd spend on a days food budget, I am just beyond angry at the lack of understanding. And, since I no longer stay in Shetland, on return visits I can see how it looks through tourist eyes. transport facilities are already poor, to make them worse defies belief.

 

How can we, as an oil rich island, have come to this?

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On subject if the viking was made into a coffee shop and waiting room then it might be a good going business, its on an excelent locating for passing trade that might welcome a cup of tea while waiting for a bus.

 

There is one just 30 seconds up the road "Emma-Louise's" and there is "Mareel" so there would be no need for it to provide such facilities.

 

Flames is right next door.

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Its a shame that it looks like its going to close. And after the council decided to keep it open not that long ago.

I cant realy see any business letting people wait for a bus or droping of their shopping or boxes to go on another bus.....

 

I know that years ago there was no waitingroom, and we all managed. But that was years ago.

 

I suppose that if we want it open we will need to write to the council.

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I cant realy see any business letting people wait for a bus or droping of their shopping or boxes to go on another bus.....

 

I know that years ago there was no waitingroom, and we all managed. But that was years ago.

 

I suppose that if we want it open we will need to write to the council.

 

The Council created the need for a left luggage/freight centre type facility when they took over the running of all bus services, back in the bad old days when each operator decided where and when it was worth running a bus most of the buses simply parked up once they got in and waited until time to go home again, and it was a simple matter to ditch shopping or stuff for delivery aboard the appropriate bus. Operators respected each other and did not "poach" work in another operators area, so there was nothing for them to do in town unlesssit and wait.

 

In their wisdom the Council decided to dictate routes, times and fares and offer them up on contracts, resulting in everybody scrambling to get as many routes as possible, with buses that had done runs in from the country doing school and town service runs during the day, and as often as not only getting in to the Viking at 5 to 5. Probably good for the operators as they earn more, but certainly an inferior service in some aspects to the travelling public. Typically the council provided a "Rolls Royce" facility to address the problem they'd just created, which was fine as long as there was apparently money to burn, but now that there ain't, in typical "all or nothing" council style we're going to have to go from gold plate to zilch. A bog basic facility would have done exactly the same job as what is, and been run at a fraction of the cost, which would have been likely to be far more affordable today.

 

But the council had to have its ivory towers, and now ordinary folk are going to have to suffer the consequences as "spend, spend, spend" tries to put the brakes on.

 

As for writing to the council, I'd like to have some assurance it would ever be read and understood before its fed through the shredder for hamster bedding, as most replies you get back to correspondence with them would tend to suggest they haven't.

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Worry not - there's plenty of front-line workers who are all too aware that their jobs are in peril. Mass redundancies are in the post and don't expect to find too many "managers" down the job centre. Oh what a fine, streamlined council it will be! The same cabal of back scratchers congratulating themselves on their innovative savings, as a hundreds sign-on and the schools, public toilets etc close. Don't worry that the old folk won't get their warm meals, or that the schools and offices aren't being properly cleaned. At least the emails (the new, cheaper form of paper-shuffling) between middle-management will continue with renewed vigor as they manifestly fail to address the real waste of resources in the council; themselves.

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Worry not - there's plenty of front-line workers who are all too aware that their jobs are in peril. Mass redundancies are in the post and don't expect to find too many "managers" down the job centre. Oh what a fine, streamlined council it will be! The same cabal of back scratchers congratulating themselves on their innovative savings, as a hundreds sign-on and the schools, public toilets etc close. Don't worry that the old folk won't get their warm meals, or that the schools and offices aren't being properly cleaned. At least the emails (the new, cheaper form of paper-shuffling) between middle-management will continue with renewed vigor as they manifestly fail to address the real waste of resources in the council; themselves.

 

Pretty spot on.

 

The wrong people are being asked to identify 'savings'. After all, when did you last find a turkey that voted for christmas?

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I think you'll also find that the turkeys are going into work creation for themselves so they look busy and appear to be indispensable.

 

They are also trying to generate some extra cash for the SIC.

 

Just ask the mussel farmers who are having to apply for planning permission for their own mussel sites because the latest aerial photography shows some of the lines are outside the imaginary box on the water.

 

This is costing thousands of pounds to the industry.

 

Frank Robertson, chair of planning, is duly contacted and doesn't know anything about it.

 

Apologies for going WAY off topic here. Don't shut the Viking Bus station. What more can I say. Does anyone feel they are being listened to?

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Does anyone feel they are being listened to?

 

Nope. Trying to enter in to a discussion with council staff takes you in to something of a parallel universe/twilight zone, where the English language in use utilises definitions unknown and unavailable to everyone else. Trying to enter in to a discussion with a Councillor invariably ends up in either the same thing, where the Councillor in question has been nobbled by "the system", or in them being led the same wild goose chase mixed with random stonewalling from council staff you've already experienced personally. The bureaucratic machine of the council is a self-sustaining, self-serving, impenetratable dictatorial monster. It closes ranks and defends itself vigorously whenever it preceives itself to be under threat, whether from within or without, that is why it has survived the recent and ongoing economy drive virtually unscathed.

 

I'll credit this council with having enough sense to initiate a "root and branch" spending review, but unfortunately that is only half of the job that needed doing, and its cart before the horse as it should have been the second half, not the first. What still needs doing, and what should have been done first is a "root and branch" review of management and Administration systems. Just about everything you come across in council management and admin could be done more effectively and efficiently, it would take an overall review as a single entity of everything council employees do, rather than on a department by department or section by section basis, with heavy emphasis on centralising admin tasks and record keeping as much as possible, and the pooling of available resources acrossthe board. Done right you would end up with a much leaner and expeditious system that was infinitely cheaper than the present dysfunctional runaway beast.

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  • 3 months later...

http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2013/09/04/transport-committee-backs-bus-station-sale

 

So, despite all the hullabaloo and shouting, the SIC Transport Committee have decided that the Viking Waiting Rooms should be sold..   I'll bet that there is not a bus user amongst them and I hope that the full council throws their plan out...

Moving the freight centre to Gremista isn't really a problem for bus travellers but, just who is the 'local business interest' mentioned and, just what protection(?) for use of the waiting rooms  will be in place.  I can't imagine any 'business interest' being to happy with having to accommodate bus travellers who may not want to spend any cash in 'his' premises.

 

It's been said many times but, I'll say it again.

 

The SIC cannot save £35 Million without offloading some staff..  Cutting the services that council (and other) tax payers expect for their money in order to protect superflous jobs is just plain stupid....

Edited by Colin
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So only five people used the lift!..........but were these disabled people who had to use the lift?.  Since the main requirement for new council offices is a large number of parking spaces is it any wonder that they think closing the Viking is OK.

 

And that £94,000.  Just how will that be saved?.  Lots of creative accounting or real savings?.

 

Then again has the un-named local businessperson a workable plan to take over the bus station and make a profit from it?.  £1 for a locker, 20p for the toilets?.  A profitable cafe selling snacks to waiting passengers?.  The councillors must be able to look at any plans before deciding and they must also be assured that should any business take over fail then the facilities must revert to the council. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

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