A DRUMCHAPEL charity has carried out its first pick-up of a Clydebank resident as part of a new community transport service.

The chairman of G15 Buses says the milestone comes "after four years of hitting the brick walls of bureaucracy" – and has been achieved without the support of any major funder.

The charity says it picked up one of its members, who lives in the G81 postcode area in Clydebank, and took them to an event in the G15 zone before returning them home afterwards using its 'Drumchapel Connector' minibus, which began operating last month.

It comes after the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) approved funding last month of £16,000 for a community transport pilot scheme in West Dunbartonshire – but the money for that scheme will go not to G15, or to a provider in the Clydebank area, but to a company based in Nitshill on the south side of Glasgow.

G15 Buses' chairman, Peter McGillion, said: “Our fully voluntary small charity has, in a time when services are being reduced, managed to introduce new services for G15 and G81, with no major funder.

"We have always said the boundary between the districts is only in the mind of politicians and modern historians, and are especially pleased to show this belief by offering this service to the residents of Clydebank as a warm up for the roll out of the SPT-funded services, managed by the local Community Transport Action Group, whose ambition is to deliver services to those in transport poverty throughout West Dunbartonshire.

"Both organisations welcome members from around G15, G81 and the wider District of West Dunbartonshire."

Funding for the Drumchapel Connector initiative has come from the Glasgow area partnership for Drumchapel and Anniesland, the Robertson Trust, and from Glasgow Airport's FlightPath Fund.

It comes after funding for a planned G15 Buses service between the area and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital was withdrawn in 2018.

Mr McGillion said the charity would keep local politicians old and new, as well as its own members, up to date on developments, and that it "would obviously welcome the support of faces old and new for this rollout of services by local people, for local people and managed by local people, who appreciate and understand the levels of local transport poverty".

For more information about community transport in the area, text your postcode to 07927 897199 and G15 will put you in touch with the most appropriate team.