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Page 87
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I have been reading your recent articles in the passenger news section of CM regarding British Car Auctions and their involvement in the sale of used buses,
the contents of which, I feel, are misleading to say the least.
We have been established now for 17 years as dealers, dismantlers and exporters of used and redundant buses and coaches. During these 17 years we have always purchased vehicles from the various passenger transport authorities, PTEs, NBC, etc, by method of tender. However, it appears some authorities have recently decided against asking for tenders and have chosen to allow BCA to auction their redundant vehicles.
So far in articles in CM the sole reason given for vehicles being auctioned is that the vehicles are said to.be fetching higher prices by this method. In your article dated July 21 regarding the vehicles disposed of by Cardiff City Transport by auction, it is stated that they realised prices of £530 to £750 for vehicles which normally would have fetched much lower prices.
Firstly, vehicles of the kind offered at the auction, with Gardner 120 engines, had never been offered on tender. before, so no comparable prices were available to substantiate this statement.
Secondly, in a letter sent to Cardiff City Transport prior to the auction we indicated that had we been given the opportunity we would have tendered prices in the region of £1,100 to £1,250 for each vehicle on offer.
Also at an auction prior to this, Reading Corporation buses were sold to an individual who had no means of disposal, and he in turn sold the vehicles to our company at a profit to himself. so much for the financial advantages of auctions.
The reason we do not attend auctions is that it is impossible to have a director from our company always available for thevast number of auctions which will take place. Also to attend such auctions where all our prices and purchases are made public knowledge is surely detrimental to our business as dealers.
The advantage of tenders for the dealers is that it only requires a fitter or salesman to view the vehicles for condition, etc, and the financial advantage for the vendors is that com panies tendering are never made aware of the prices submitted by their competitors, therefore should any company urgently need a particular batch of vehicles, which is often the case, they may well submit a price far above any other offer.
This can never happen at an auction where the top bid is known all the time the auction is in progress and the differential will never exceed £25 or so.
There are, however, very positive disadvantages to public auctions, and if it is the intention of BCA to expand onto a national basis as is indicated in your article of the August 11, I can only think that they, and the companies to be involved are totally unaware of the implications of such a proposal.
When you consider that there are approximately 4,000 redundant buses per year dis posed of, and approximately 50 per cent of these are partly can nibalised and non-runners, little wonder why there are about six major companies such as ours in Britain doing nothing else but tendering, collecting, exporting and dismantling ex PTE, NBC and municipal redundant buses.
I find it difficult to visualise how auctioneers would deal with such volumes of redundant buses without sell ing to the major dealers, who, without exception are totally opposed to this method of disposal.
Ultimately, the disposal method lies with the bus com panies who operate the buses and one can only hope that they fully realise the implications of such a change of disposal procedure and the environmental responsibilities which would be involved.
PAUL SYKES, Chairman, Paul Sykes Organisation Ltd, Barnsley, South Yorks