The O-Licence held by Holyhead-based Goodsir Coaches was revoked after DTC Nick Jones found the business to be ‘dysfunctional’
The 13 vehicle O-Licence held by long established Holyhead-based Thomas Hughes and Graham Goodsir, trading as Goodsir Coaches, was revoked by Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) Nick Jones after he found the “business to be dysfunctional”.
The DTC disqualified Mr Hughes, who failed to appear at a Caernarfon Public Inquiry, from holding an O-Licence indefinitely. He disqualified Mr Goodsir from holding a licence for 12 months.
He also held that the repute of former Transport Manager (TM) Colin Rogers was severely tarnished, and he considered that he was only capable of undertaking a TM’s role for one or two vehicles.
TM Kevin Bryant said he had found Mr Hughes regularly carried out a school run and parked the bus overnight at Llanfachraeth, which was not an authorised operating centre. He had raised the issue with Mr Hughes and had informed the other partner.
Mr Rogers said he had become aware Mr Hughes was “moonlighting” with the firm’s vehicles, organising trips which they knew nothing about. Financial issues were often at the root of the difficulties and for a time in November 2019 vehicles were untaxed.
Speaking for Mr Goodsir, Helen Newbold said that his wife Paula and daughter Emma were involved in the business and were considering their options, including setting up a limited company retaining the company name.
In his decision, the DTC said that between 30 October and 27 November 2019, six days of bus monitoring was conducted. Of 116 journeys anticipated, 50 journeys were published on Anglesey Council’s website and with Traveline Cymru, but did not appear to be registered with the Office of the Traffic Commissioner (OTC).
Of those 50 journeys, 38 were observed to be running and a further 12 failed to operate. Of the 66 journeys registered with the OTC, 57 were observed. Nine failed to operate, eight were running more than one minute early and five were running more than five minutes late. It was clear that the firm had not sufficiently appreciated that services needed to be registered with the Traffic Commissioner for Wales, not the local authority.
It transpired that, as a result of the poor knowledge as to how to register services among the smaller bus operators in the Anglesey area, local authority officers registered services for PSV operators. While there was no difficulty in any operator receiving assistance, it was important that services were registered by the relevant PSV operator.
The partnership, the entity holding the licence, was broken to the extent that it did not function properly and relationships had broken down. The firm now appeared to be run by various members of the Goodsir family with overall control by the new TM.
The bus registration failures were a result of inefficient and ineffective management. Mr Hughes needed to be kept out of the industry for a considerable period of time, if he did not come back to the industry that would be no loss. Graham Goodsir was incapable of running a PSV business and it was both in his interest and that of the industry that he be kept out of any management role for a period of time.
Delaying the implementation of the revocation for a month, the DTC said that the new TM was ensuring compliance and had exponentially improved systems. An immediate revocation would not help the local authority or the local community.
If either or both Paula and Emma Goodsir, or any other member of the Goodsir family, sought to be involved in any new entity, the DTC would expect them to attend specialist O-Licence awareness training.
