Wednesday April 29th 2026
Scottish Greens Party co-leaders Gillian Mackay and Ross Greer
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
The Scottish Greens have made a pledge to take more of Scotland’s buses under public control through a ‘bus bonds’ scheme.
Aiming to end ‘decades of failed bus privatisation’, the plan to take services into public ownership aims to be achieved through ‘Scottish bus bonds’ which allows the public to invest into local services such as buses.
The Greens explained that public ownership of bus services would end ‘the scandal of private companies raking in millions in public subsidies while passengers are left with rising fares’.
This Scotland wide plan aims to replicate Edinburgh and the Lothian’s bus service, Lothian Buses, which is publicly owned and the largest municipal bus company in the UK. The bus service is owned by the local authorities with around 91% of shares held by Edinburgh Council, Midlothian Council owning around 5% and the remaining shares split between East Lothian and West Lothian Council.
The plan is part of a package of policies by the Greens to overhaul services across Scotland, including free bus travel for all.
Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay explained that the bus bond scheme aims to let people take a meaningful stake in services they rely on, being one way that Greens ‘would support communities in making their own bids’.
She added: “Bus privatisation has failed communities all across Scotland. It has meant higher fares, fewer routes and a broken and fragmented system where companies can cherry-pick profitable services while leaving passengers and councils to pick up the pieces.
“The Scottish Greens will finally end the failed Thatcherite experiment for good. We will bring our buses back under public control and give local people a proper say over the routes and services they rely on.
“The bus companies have had it too easy for too long. They have been allowed to hike fares, and cut routes while raking in vast public subsidies, meanwhile large parts of the country have been left with services that simply do not meet their needs.
“The Scottish Greens will work with regular commuters and transport groups to build a Scotland where services are run in the public interest, communities get the routes they need and ordinary people are not priced out of getting to work, college, hospital appointments or seeing their family.”
The Scottish Greens have committed to the bold plans for free bus travel for all, building on the popularity of free travel for everyone under 22 which the Greens previously secured.
Gillian added:
“It was the Scottish Greens who introduced free bus travel for young people, and we want to build on it by expanding it to everyone. That will put money back in people’s pockets while cutting emissions and making public transport the first and best choice for more people.
“On 7th May, people across Scotland have a clear choice. We can either have more years of a broken and costly postcode lottery of services, or Scottish Green MSPs who will bring services back under public control and build the affordable, reliable, publicly run transport network that Scotland deserves.”
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