Give us better policy
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BRITAIN'S bus industry in the year 2000 was the subject of discussion at the annual conference of the Scottish Council of the Confederation of British Road Passenger Transport held at Gleneagles Hotel.
Trevor Webster of Metro-Cammell Weymann attacked the inability of both national and local politicians to achieve any degree of consensus on the way the bus industry should be operated and sustained.
Observers, he said in his paper, would marvel that in spite of the total absence of shortand long-term policy objectives and commitments to financing arrangements, the industry maintains its day-to-day operations on well-established lines.
In consequence, he said, any genuine attempt to forecast the future must be extremely hazardous. The industry might be privatised, nationalised, rationalised, subsidised, or possibly be subjected to "even more dramatic and as yet unimagined actions". Under the present system of Government, in which ever which party is in power seems committed to undo all its predecessor lays down.
The consequence of the bewildering lack of political direction has confused the public and made the future difficult for the bus manufacturer with "all the manufacturing capacity so recently demanded, which has now become surplus to the needs of traditional customers".