Stuart McQueen, managing director of Garelochhead Coaches, has spoken out about claims made at a meeting of Cove and Kilcreggan Community Council, where parents claimed a window fell out of one of his buses, and that a driver forced children off the bus in the snow.

Mr McQueen said the incident where a window reportedly fell out of the bus, as reported by the Advertiser in December, occurred because two boys were fighting – of which he has CCTV evidence to prove.

He said: “Windows don’t fall out of buses. Two boys were fighting, there is CCTV to show that.

“A public meeting was held with out us being invited. The bottom line here is that parents down the peninsula don’t want a double decker.

“It has turned into a witch hunt for no reason. The buses have been used without incident for two years. There has only been one complaint in that time lodged with the council, which was one in March last year that there was a smell.

“The next came when the boys knocked the window out the bus.

“Someone said it fell out. How ridiculous. Their parents were invited to come and view the CCTV footage – and one of the boys parents did, the other declined.

“A warning was sent to the parents by the council about the boys’ behaviour, saying it had to be improved.

“That’s the only two complaints that have ever been lodged against us.” Mr McQueen said one of his drivers made the decision not to attempt to drive up the Mill Brae when it was snowing, opting to wait on a gritter.

He said: “The driver did the sensible thing by waiting on the gritter. We were well aware of what was happening. Some parents came in 4x4s to collect their children, others waited and phoned their parents.

“It was the safe and sensible decision. It would have been just up their street had the driver went up the hill and came off the road.” Mr McQueen, who has run the company for more than 20 years, alleged parents were bringing up the issues because they did not want double deckers running their children to school.

He added: “It’s just an ongoing saga, which I am getting fed up of.

“We take it seriously, if it is too windy we put single deckers on, I’m not saying accidents don’t happen, we just do our utmost to avoid having accidents.

“There’s children all over the country going to school every day on double deckers.

“If someone came to me with good hard grounds for the allegations then I would be happy to look at it, I can’t do any more.” Double-deckers were introduced in January 2013 after the school bus contract was awarded to Garelochhead Minibuses and Coaches Ltd following a long legal battle which ended in the Court of Session in Edinburgh; initially it had been awarded to Dumbarton-based firm McColls but the tendering process was ruled to be unsound.

A spokeswoman for Argyll and Bute Council said pupils were delivered home safely after the incident where the rear window was ‘forced out of the vehicle’.

She added: “The council liaised with the operator soon after the incident – we requested and received a full report.”