TWO bus firms have been stripped of their licences after a public inquiry found their services had become "unreliable to the point of near unpredictability".
A Trip In Time Ltd and Stonehouse Coaches Ltd, both based in Larkhall, South Lanarkshire, have been disqualified after inspectors found that their buses routinely turned up late or not at all, dropped off passengers where there were no bus stops, and followed routes not scheduled on the timetables.
Brian Cutmore, director of both firms, was also accused of charging Transport Scotland fares in excess of those offered to passengers in an attempt to inflate the companies' income from concessionary fares reimbursement. He denied the claim.
However, Joan Aitken, the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, said that Mr Cutmore "cannot be trusted with an operator's licence", adding: "Disqualification will be indefinite. For him public service vehicle operating is over. He must accept that and I hope he can move to another way of earning his living."
The decision follows a public inquiry held in Edinburgh in February, brought amid concerns about the firms' practices.
Inspectors from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) monitored 88 journeys over two days by A Trip In Time Ltd. These covered service numbers 7, 12 and 32, which ran from Coatbridge. None were seen to be operating.
Stonehouse Coaches Ltd were monitored over six days, with inspectors recording 61 instances of non compliance with the bus company's timetables. These included 13 instances where buses arrived late and three when they turned up early. In five cases services failed to operate at all, and two other buses were seen off-route.
Mr Cutmore said some services had been cancelled at short notice to protect passengers and the public. The inquiry was told the Cutmore family had been under stress since their Trip In Time depot had been burned down in May 2011 - allegedly by competitors. They had faced a financial struggle to get it back up and running but received threats and intimidation against operating their firm in Monklands, according to a lawyer for Stephanie Cutmore - Mr Cutmore's daughter and a fellow director.
However, Miss Aitken said she could not base her decision on "assertions about the behaviour of other operators", noting that Mr Cutmore had been called to public inquiries on four previous occasions over compliance issues and had once been fined £1000 in relation to the A Trip In Time Ltd licence.
Miss Aitken also disqualified Miss Cutmore from holding an operator's licence for two years.
Neither of the bus firms could be contacted for comment yesterday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article