UKCOA interview: Coopers Tours of Killamarsh

This month, UKCOA Managing Director Peter Bradley converses with UKCOA member Graham Cooper of Coopers Tours

Coopers Tours was founded in 1974 by James Cooper and sons Graham and Alan. A family business, Graham’s two sons James and Richard, along with Alan’s two children, Russell and Laura, are also Directors within the company.

As well as the coach business, there is an active road haulage company – J Cooper and Sons Transport – that delivers bulk aggregates, hires tipper trucks, and provides specialist trucks and low-loader trailers for recovery and the movement of PCVs, HGVs, and agricultural vehicles.

Coopers is based at Killamarsh in North East Derbyshire and primarily covers South Yorkshire and the North Midlands. It runs a maintenance facility for both coaches and trucks and what it calls a ‘one-stop body shop’ which repairs and repaints a range of vehicles including coaches, buses and trucks, cars, vans and even vintage tractors.

Coopers also runs two travel offices, one based in Killamarsh lose to the head office, and the other in Grimsby. Coopers has an extensive holiday and day excursions programme. Also in Grimsby is Coopers’ sister company Coopers Tours (Lincs), primarily covering the North East and Mid Lincolnshire area. This runs coach hires and contains a maintenance department that can take on work for other coach and haulage operators. Private hire and a few home-to-school contracts complete the portfolio of work.

Coopers Tours has been a long-term member of the UK Coach Operators Association (UKCOA), even prior to 2021 when, as the London Tourist Coach Operators Association (LTCOA), it had a primary London focus. Graham recognised access to London for coach operators from around the country was important and has supported the Association’s efforts in negotiating setting down and picking up arrangements on London’s red routes.

Graham and his family are also firm supporters of the UK Coach Rally and have won the LTCOA/UKCOA Martin Cornell Trophy every year since 2015 (for the highest placed UKCOA member in all classes).

I ask Graham about the challenges he faces at present. “Recruitment is certainly a problem,” he says. “The shortages are so severe that I have seen school kids waiting over an hour to get home when a school bus has failed to show and the company concerned has had to send the first driver who returned back to the depot out again to cover a second run. We are recruiting drivers, but once we have them trained, they leave to drive vans or do something else. We are just not getting them to stay. Also, it would be nice to see the younger generation come into the coach industry. Our existing full-time drivers, and especially our part time drivers, won’t be around forever. We need some young blood to drive our industry forward and keep our legacy alive.“

Mechanics is another thing. We used to get a couple of kids a year from the local secondary school and give them first-class practical training in mechanical engineering. But we have had no interest from anyone for eight years. Surely out of a school of 1,400 students there must be a few budding engineers wanting some experience?”

PSVAR is still an issue and Graham has been a champion in pointing out the impracticalities of wheelchair lifts and their operation outside the urban environment, even producing a film to highlight the challenges.

“As careful as we are,” Graham says, “I am worried that we or another operator is going to end up having a serious accident in deploying the lift and then be prosecuted for doing so. I have tried to get the Health and Safety Executive interested in the situation and am waiting to hear what its conclusion is. Where else would you invest £25,000 to £30,000 (for a wheelchair lift) knowing that you would get no money in return for doing so?”

Graham tends to ‘say it how it is’, which is very refreshing, but I can tell he is still passionate about the industry, albeit frustrated with the challenges it is facing.

We look forward to seeing him and the team in Blackpool for the 2023 Coach Rally to defend their title!