LRT's 20 pc solution
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/ITHIN three years, London egional Transport's bus enineering workshops plan to o a fifth of their work for utside transport organisaons. They also relish the ossibility of being privatised.
Bus Engineering Ltd 3EL), the autonomous LRT absidiary set up to manage
ic Aldenham body shops, liswick mechanical and
lectrical workshops and the :Kra Road, Brixton, ticket aachine works, said this last veek when it outlined .rogress in its aim to become commercially motivated • iable company.
it has cut its losses from 17 million to £5 million and las lost 840 of the 1,000 staff wants to lose by voluntary .edundancy and natural wasage by the end of this year.
1; 1 million has been nvested in Chiswick and i4.1 million at Aldenham. Another :.10 million is to he spent on -estructuring Chiswick, abject to Government ap ,rov;i1. Ths Chiswick workforce's vote against
BEL's plans there (C.11, February 8) were described by management as a —family squabblewhich it is confident can be overcome.
In the III months to January 24 this year, it had delivered nearly i490,000-worth of
work to outside customers.
This has been generated from work on converting and re pairing buses to repainting and repairing lorries for larger fleet operators.
According to sales and marketing manager Paul Her tin, BEL plans to spend 000,000 in the next year on marketing the company's ser vices, and plans to appoint sales representatives to visit potential customers and attend exhibitions.
For that investment, Berth' believes BEL could generate more than $22 million-worth of new outside business. He said that within three years the company intends to generate 20 per cent of its turnover from outside LRT.
Its main customer is still London Buses, hut the LIZT route tendering programme is strengthening demands for more competitive engineering services. The cessation of full bus overhauls every four years has cost Aldenham over million-worth of turnover a year.
BEL is confident of becoming a recognised fitting agent for Daf diesel engines and has already re-engined a Southend Transport Leyland Leopard coach.
According to Bertin, Oaf believes that BEL's breadth of skills are unmatched, either in Britain or the Low Countries.
BEL also stands to gain 00.000-worth of business each month for five years if LRT secures its deal to sell 1,300 surplus Routemaster double-deckers and spares to China. That deal is worth about £20 million, and the Chinese authorities have sent a letter of intent to go ahead with the deal.
BEL's chairman, Bill fairhall, is enthusiastic about the possibility — allowed for in the London Regional Transport Act — of BEL being privatised. "We wouldn't mind. It makes very little difference," he said, and on the possibility of a management buy-out, said: "I would be happy to put my house on it."
He said that even if London Buses loses a large part of its route network to contractors, BEL would still be able to provide the other operators with engineering support. It has supplied destination blinds to contractors and is able to provide repair facilities.
The restructure of the bus industry as deregulation takes effect will present 13EL with more, rather than fewer business opportunities. lie believes.