MORE than 100 residents in Crossgates are up in arms after a key direct bus service was cut.

Stageocach bus service changes last month have resulted in the X26 service being removed from Crossgates and the Mossgreen area and local residents are not happy with the decision.

A petition started on Monday morning with the hopes that enough signatures would encourage Stagecoach to reconsider their decision.

Agnes Smillie, resident, said: "I've now had almost 130 signatures on this petition by going around the doors. I've been to almost every door in the area and everyone has been very welcoming and supportive of this petition and are upset by the removal of the service. Not one single person didn't want to sign it.

"There was no consultation at all and we were all left totally shocked by it. It's awful. No respect has been given to the elderly people in the area at all. It's totally irresponsible. In some cases the removal of this service now means older people have had a life line removed from them. Visitors are having such trouble coming to see them, with one elderly man in the area having to walk a long distance before getting on a bus so he can visit his wife in a care home in Dunfermline."

"People in this area for as long as I can remember have had that service available to them. We've never not been able to get on that bus."

The decision to remove the direct service from Crossgates was in accordance with passenger usage data for the area.

Douglas Robertson, Commercial Director, Stagecoach East Scotland: "The changes we made to our network of services on 15 August were designed to ensure we can continue to offer a good local bus network for as many people as possible. Communities continue to have bus links provided by ourselves or other operators in almost all cases. Although the changes we recently made to service X26 will have left parts of Crossgates without a direct coach service, our analysis of passenger use in this area showed that there were very low passenger numbers using the route in the Mossgreen area of Crossgates. Services 19 and 33 continue to offer a regular bus link on the High Street and Dunfermline Road to Dunfermline, Queen Margaret Hospital, Cowdenbeath, Ballingry and Kirkcaldy as well as many connection opportunities at Halbeath Park & Ride, including the coach services to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

"We appreciate some of our timetable revisions will cause changes to travel habits for some people. Unfortunately, no change is not an option. The reality is that we have been faced with a situation where factors largely outside our control mean there are less passenger journeys on some routes and therefore less money to pay the costs of running these bus services. Like many households and businesses, we have been forced to respond to the difficult economic conditions to create a stable network for the future given the finite resources available."