Cau David. profit irom Goliath's loss
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GENERALITIES about the rural transport situation are flying thick and fast, but the only way to assess the hard practicalities is to take an on-the-spot look at an area of manageable size, and to do this I have just been to south-West Wales. With its scatitered rural communities, isolated farms andl lack of alternative public transport, Wales is particularly vulnerable to the withdrawal of the local bus. And as I discovered when I probed more deeply, there are ironies and side-effects which are not always foreseen.
I was particularly interested in two aspects: the effects of local councils' refusal to provide subsidies for certain services, and the prospects for two services formerly operated by Western Welsh Omnibus Co Ltd which have been taken over by local, private operators.
The traffic manager of Western Welsh, Mr A. F. H. Pengelly, talking to me in the company's Cardiff hq, said 14 services had recently been cancelled and more would follow. The service deletions were made only after the local authorities had had the recommended three months in which to decide whether or not to subsidize. Western Welsh provided the authorities with details of its losses on rural area services and examples of these figures were quoted by Mr Pengelly. In the Brecon area in 1969 losses amounted to £15,758, in Carmarthen £28,050 and in Haverfordwest £60,420.
The three months' notice to the respective local authorities terminated on January 10 this year and from that date the 14 services were cancelled because no subsidies were offered.
Brecon county council agreed to subsidize services in its area for six months and Cardiganshire agreed in principle to provide some subsidy, probably for six months' trial. Haverfordwest and Carmarthen rura councils both refused and it is these area which have lost 12 and two service: respectively; 62 Western Welsh staff hay( been made redundant and two depots a Fishguard and St David's are closed. A decision has yet to be taken on th( continuance of the Carmarthen depo although Mr Pengelly thought that Soutl Wales Transport may wish to take this on over.
Western Welsh, incidentally, claims to b the biggest employer of labour in St David' so the cancellations came as a doublt blow—causing a loss in means o communication and adding to the surfeit of unemployed labour.
The two cancelled services in Carmarthenshire have since been taken over on a temporary basis by small, private Operators but other Western Welsh services in the area are still under discussion.
Some 820,000 miles annually, 28 buses and £40,000 cost savings a year (a figure which equals the subsidy requested from the two local authorities—Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire) will be deleted from Western Welsh commitments as a result of these cancellations; the company does a total annual mileage of 21m and has a fleet of 690 vehicles.
There are, according to Mr Pengelly, a number of ironies involved in the changes following the cancellations. Western Welsh had applied unsuccessfully to reduce the frequency of some of the since cancelled services; the two routes nOw being run by private operators are on reduced frequencies. Western Welsh was running 10 school contracts in the Haverfordwest area. and six months ago, asking for an increase of 10 per cent on the contract price, was given only five per cent. The company has since surrendered the contracts and to obtain replacements the education authority has had to pay 100 per cent above the Western Welsh contract price. Ten vehicles, working only one hour a day each, were involved in these contracts at stage carriage rates.
Sceptical Mr Pengelly is sceptical about the future of the two Carmarthenshire services taken over by the private operators. While things may be running smoothly at the rqoment, he believes when the operators grow they will be faced with the necessity to pay union rates and then will be in the same position as Western Welsh—unable to operate the services without subsidy.
This thinking seems to be borne out by the attitude of seven or eight other small operators who attended one of the meetings with local authorities to discuss these subsidies. The operators were reported to have said they could not take over the cancelled services unless they were offered a subsidy nor would they continue their own existing services unless these were subsidized.
In order to hear the other side of the story I talked to the two private operators who had taken over the Carmarthenshire services from Western Welsh. Both were operating on a temporary licence which is due to be reviewed by the Traffic Commissioners early in March.
The Llanelli to Carmarthen route via Pontyberem has been taken over by Samuel Eynon and Sons, of Trimsaran, a 20-vehicle operator established in 1917.
This firm is currently running two buses on the route with five journeys in each direction compared with Western Welsh's nine journeys in each direction on weekdays and 12 on Saturdays. Eynon's service is useful for essential workers, does school contracts work and also caters for midday shoppers.
Mr D. I. Lodwick the general manager, was confident that the firm could continue to operate at the existing frequency without subsidy; should the demand increase he would try to improve the service even if the last thing he wanted to do—he had to ask for a subsidy.
Although at the time of my visit Eynon was only in the second week of operation on the route, the results had been encouraging-250 to 300 passengers were carried each day. The driver reported that of course, the hills on the route took their toll although his vehicle, a. 1969 Leyland Leopard appeared to cope adequately.
In addition to this service Eynon operates a Llanelli-Carmarthen service via Trimsaran and Kidwelly and also has contracts to carry about 1200 children a day.
I asked Mr Lodwick about the attitude of passengers to the reduced services. He thought it hard on them because they had had such a good service in the past but said they realized it had to be cut and were grateful some service was being provided. Workers, including shop and office people, were getting the service they wanted and Mr Lodwick was planning the following week to adjust one of the services to cater for nurses who had to be on early duty at Llanelli hospital.
Mr Lodwick was critical of the reduced return-ticket system. This, in his opinion, had been the cause of constant fares increases and if they had been done away with 10 or 15 years ago the fares increases would not have been so great. However, providing a bus service to the community is his life he said, and he is not aiming to get rich.
Daniel Jones and Sons, of Carmarthen, have taken over the CarmarthenLlanstephan-Llanybri route on a 90-day trial without subsidy, providing seven daily cach-way services compared with the 12 of Western Welsh. If, after this period, they find the route unprofitable they will ask for a subsidy. In either event they have asked for a subsidy for the last service each way each day which leaves Carmarthen at 9.4.5 pm and Llanybri at 10.15 pm, because it involves drivers in a three-hour wait at each end from the preceding service.
This small company operates 14. vehicles—all single-deckers mainly on schools and National Coal Board contracts. They also have a Government contract for taking workers to the Pendine Proof and Experimental Station.
They also operate a stage carriage service between Carmarthen and Landeilo with nine daily journeys each way. This service has been subsidized by Carmarthen rural council since January 4 this year. Daniel Jones and Sons intend to cover their costs plus 15 per cent on top. As the service is currently earning £84 weekly, and costs are calculated at £110 weekly, to cover this and provide the 15 per cent on cost the subsidy must amount to £42 lOs a week.
Carmarthen-Uanatephan-LJanybri
The six journeys (discounting the late evening one) are presently returning a revenue figure of 25d per mile. Overall, on all their services Mr Jones told me that their costs were 19d a mile on stage carriage work with the 2s 6d a gallon fuel rebate, and 22d a mile on contract services when the rebate did not apply.
Mr Jones felt quite sure that the ex-Western Welsh service would have to be subsidized after the trial period. The service is widely used by schoolchildren which helps to make it pay, but the loss of revenue during school holidays would have to be made up by the local authority, Mr Jones said.
Commercial Motor reported on December 25, 1970, that Welsh bus problems were worrying MN. I found that the problems are certainly, causing concern to the people of West Wales because services are disappearing left, right and centre. Mr Pengelly believes that even worse prospects are ahead. It will be interesting to see the pattern of events that follow the meetings between the councils and Mr Peter Thomas, Secretary of State for Wales, which were forecast in our report.