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Lord Stokes: 'We're trying to improve bus delivery'
Page 27
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A SUBSTANTIAL increase in bus production was likely soon. said British Leyland chairman Lord Stokes last week. Speaking at the conference dinner of the Association of Public Passenger Transport, he said he was well aware that operators were frustrated by the delay in getting vehicles, but the operating industry's ordering pattern had been erratic in the past, and the filling of export orders was essential for the viability of production. Volume helped to keep the price down.
Now, however, BL MC was trying to. expand vehicle and parts production, with substantial improvements in view.
Lord Stokes claimed that Britain's bus making and bus operating industries were the best in the world, and Leyland's new doubledecker (the BI5) would be a world-beater.
Reminding delegates that BLMC had car as well as bus and truck interests, he said it would have to be accepted that the motorist would not get rid of his car even with much better public transport on offer. And if electric cars came into use for urban journeys, he saw these as additional to, not replacements for, the normal cars used for business and pleasure outside the cities.
Earlier the Mayor of Brighton, Councillor Sheldon, had regretted the passing of the trolley bus, and expressed a hope that electric buses would replace the diesel in towns.