Related companies have O-Licences revoked from December, and Transport Managers disqualified
Two Gwynedd operators, Express Motors (Penygroes) and Express Motors, have had their O-Licences revoked by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Jones after a coach crash in France last year.
The DVSA investigated vehicles operated by Express Motors (Penygroes) following the incident, which saw a coach overturn on a motorway in July 2016, and found tachograph problems and poor maintenance records.
The TC has revoked the company’s licence from 31 December 2017, and disqualified workshop manager Ian Wyn Jones from acting as a Transport Manager for 12 months.
He heard that the company shared maintenance facilities with Express Motors, a separate company run by Eric Wyn Jones and his wife Jean.
He concluded that Kevin Wyn Jones, who was Transport Manager for both entities and is Eric Jones’ son, should have realised there were maintenance anomalies.
He disqualified Kevin Wyn Jones from acting as a Transport Manager until he takes a refresher course.
He also revoked the licence for Eric and Jean Jones’ company from 31 December 2017.
For Express Motors (Penygroes), James Backhouse said that although the two entities were run separately with different pools of drivers, they shared workshop facilities in Penygroes.
He said the company accepted the findings of the DVSA report and that maintenance records were “not right”.
He said Ian Wyn Jones, who is also Eric Jones’ son, was no longer a director and was currently off sick. He said outside expertise had been brought in, but two competent Transport Managers had left the company for different reasons in recent years. He said the business recognises a need to “sit down, reorganise and start again”, and that it intends to curtail the coach hire side and focus on registered bus services, and Eric Wyn Jones intends to retire.
He said a new company – Express Motors (Caernarfon) Ltd – would be set up and apply for an O-Licence.
The TC said there had been serious failings, but an application for a new O-Licence would be viewed sympathetically.
He concluded by saying that significant efforts were being made by the Welsh Government to improve standards of compliance within the bus industry, with an objective of an increase in bus patronage, by “operators running safely and to time, and the absolute integrity of paperwork.”
