Dear Stephen Flynn MSP, Cabinet Secretary of Economy, Tourism and Transport and MSP for Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine 

We, the undersigned, write to you with a clear and urgent message: you must take action to bring down bus fares in Aberdeenshire now. 

Stagecoach raised bus fares again in May 2026. At the time of writing, a return ticket from Peterhead to Aberdeen costs £21.30.  We need national intervention urgently to bring down the cost of bus tickets that private bus operators have raised year on year: the £2 bus fare cap must be urgently extended to the North East. 

Andy Burnham has promised a blanket national roll out of a £2 fare cap across England as a cost-of-living crisis measure and allocated funding for the devolved Governments. Yet the Scottish Government are delaying and opting for a phased roll out that ultimately leaves people behind and creates a patchy postcode lottery of access to essential services.   

Aberdeenshire is not served by rail links, our local communities are reliant on bus services and private car ownership for our daily lives.  Many of us would like to use our cars less, many of us do not drive with many areas of Peterhead having up to 70% of properties not owning a vehicle. 

Access to affordable public transport must be treated as a basic right: we depend on buses to access healthcare, education, employment and social lives yet operators continue to be unregulated and unaccountable to our communities. 

Neither our wallets nor the public purse should continue to foot the bill for lifeline public services delivered by unreliable private operators. We are clear that fare caps can only be a plaster over a broken system that needs brought back into public hands. 

In the meantime, you have the power to bring down the cost of buses for locals in Aberdeenshire now - we ask that you use this. 

We look forward to your response, 

Better Buses for Buchan