A failure to run 12 registered services has led to Deputy TC Anthony Seculer ordering Pontypridd-based Clayton Jones to pay a penalty of £3,200
A failure to run 12 registered services has led to Deputy Traffic Commissioner (DTC) Anthony Seculer ordering Pontypridd-based Clayton Jones, trading as Street Buses, to pay a penalty of £3,200. In addition, the DTC has cut the company’s licence from eight vehicles to one following a Pontypridd Public Inquiry.
The DTC said that Mr Jones was granted 13 registered bus routes to commence operation from 7 February 2022. On 14 February the latter wrote to the Central Licensing Unit (CLU) stating he wished to “suspend” eight of the registered services, because of the failings of others. There was no power in law to suspend services in that way and he conceded that he was aware of that fact.
On 14 February 2022 the punctuality of the newly registered routes was checked. The 12 routes checked were failing to operate and a punctuality monitoring exercise was carried out between 14 February and 6 May 2022. The findings of the 499 observations were a 26.85% punctuality rate, with 68.14% of services failing to operate.
Mr Jones argued “reasonable excuse” for the failures because of the non-delivery of three new buses; the non-receipt of ticketing machines by Caerphilly County Borough
Council; “complicity” created by Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council; the non-receipt of funding from Monmouthshire County Council and the Welsh Government; and “fundamental faults” at the Office of the Traffic Commissioner.
The DTC did not consider these provided “reasonable excuse”, but he accepted that there was a genuine intent to run the services and that the reasons, such as the non-delivery of the newly purchased buses and the problems associated with the ticketing machines, amounted to mitigating circumstances.
Regarding the gap in the paperwork between February 2022 and August 2022, while he had accepted that there was communication from the CLU to the operator, the absence of documentary proof amounted to some mitigation for him failing to make the correct application on the correct prescribed forms until August 2022.
The actions and communications from Mr Jones paid insufficient regard to the bus users in the local community. The fact that he placed signs on bus stops stating “Street Buses have (sic) temporarily suspended all services with immediate effect” provided little assistance
or solace to members of the public seeking to rely on those bus services.
In warning Mr Jones about his future conduct as an operator and Transport Manager, the DTC said that he took account of a failure to comply with an undertaking to provide an independent audit on compliance systems by 13 September 2022.
Mr Jones needed to demonstrate that he could work effectively within a regulated industry. It was his responsibility to see that formal applications were made on the prescribed forms within correct timescales. Similarly, communications need to be timely, relevant and manageable, and that had not been evidenced; for example, in the large file of documents brought along on the morning of the Public Inquiry.
