Vandals have slashed the tyres of a brand new charity Dial-a-bus which was taking a group of elderly people from Banffshire to the Aberdeen to do their Christmas shopping.
The Banffshire Partnership, which run a rural bus service and lunch club, only recently bought the fully-accessible minibus after saving years’ worth of generous donations from passengers.
But on one of the new vehicle’s first long journeys someone deliberately punctured three of its tyres while it was parked at the city’s Bridge of Don Retail Park.
Operations manager Rebecca Ross said: “We recently took delivery of a fabulous new wheelchair-accessible MAN minibus which was bought after saving-up several years of our passengers’ donations of spare change after their shopping trips.
“On December 9, we decided to celebrate and use it to run a special Christmas shopping excursion to Aberdeen for a group of elderly clients, some of whom hadn’t been to the city for quite a while.
“It was all very exciting and spirits were high.
“But while the bus was parked in the car park outside B&Q and Home Bargains, someone vandalised it by pushing a sharp instrument through the tyre walls, puncturing them and rendering the bus immobile.”
The incident was reported to the police who are investigating the matter and assessing CCTV footage from the shops.
Thankfully the group were not stranded for long as McConechy’s Commercial Tyres in Aberdeen worked through the cold and “less than ideal” car park conditions to get the bus mobile once more, enabling the group to begin to their return trip.
Banffshire Partnership CEO, Duncan Leece said: “Rebecca and the team were really upset and, of course, the unexpected cost of three bus tyres for our brand-new vehicle has put a dent in our budget.
“It will restrict the nice wee extra excursions we can lay on for our clients.”
Mr Leece said the group “dusted themselves off” and “attempted to put it behind us”, only to be hit by further misfortune.
This week, along with bundles of Christmas cards, they were delivered a £60 fine for being in the carpark for three hours and 17 minutes – exceeding the three-hour limit.
Mr Leece said he had written to the company in the hope of having the fine rescinded.
The partnership’s staff are appealing for anyone who was in the car park on December 9, at about 11am, to check their dash cam footage or report anything they saw to the police.
Anyone with information can call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
