Evans wins fue appea
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• Evans Coaches of New Tredegar has won an appeal against the loss of 20% of its fuel grant. The Transport Tribunal decided that South Wales Traffic Commissioner John Mervyn Pugh was wrong to direct that the grant should be reduced for a threemonth period, and also overturned a condition on Evans licence banning it from providing any new local services.
The company had appeared at a public inquiry last year at which Pugh heard complaints that it had not run services as registered, and had failed to display route details correctly on its vehicles.
Managing director Ian Evans told the Tribunal that failures to operate the Merthyr Tydfil service were due to drivers.
The routes were otherwise well served and no complaints had been made by the public, he said. Only Mid Glamorgan County Council had complained.
Evans agreed with Tribunal president Judge John Inskip that the 52 failures to provide the service had to be viewed in the context of not inconveniencing the public. Some of the failures were due to drivers not turning up for early-morning services. Others were due to Sunday afternoon services not keeping to scheduled times.
The services in question formed only 5% of the company's total registered services, Evans added.
The council's complaints about displaying the correct destination were due to the service being a circular route and the destination blind showing Merthyr all the time. Destinations had since been agreed
with the council and were now displayed, he said.
Judge Inskip said that it appeared that Pugh had not accepted Evans' submissions as reasonable excuses, and so did not look into what proportion of the total service was affected.
Evans pointed out that despite the condition banning new services, the Commissioner had given permission for two further services.
Judge Inskip said the Tribunal was satisfied the Commissioner had misdirected himself, and it would give its reasons in writing.