County service was 'irregular'
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• County Travel (Leicester) last week admitted at a Nottingham public inquiry irregularities in the way it operated local services. As a result, Eastern Traffic Commissioner Brigadier Compton Boyd is considering whether or not to impose conditions on the company's licence, preventing it from operating local services.
The case followed complaints that a new timetable introduced when a road had been closed on the route of three services between Leices ter and Loughborough, was still being operated despite the fact that the road concerned had been reopened. Midland Fox had complained that variations to those services, and the introduction of a 22:00hrs journey on a Fleckney service authorised from 1 December, had been introduced early on 23 November 1987.
County Travel's Leicester Operations director, John lliffe, said 25,000 new timetables had been published when the County Council informed the firm that the road would not be reopened until January.
When he admitted that the company had not reverted to the original timings when the road reopened, Iliffe said it would have been impracticable to do so for at least a fortnight. The company had not wanted to cause further disruption to its passengers by reverting to the old timings when it had authority to operate under the new timings from the beginning of December.
Iliffe said the introduction of the Fleckney 22:00hrs journey on 23 November instead of 1 December was an error.
There had been no intention to gain any advantage over other operators or to flout the Commissioner's authority. The company had felt that it had to operate the services in accordance with the published timetable for the sake of the public.
Reserving decision, Brigadier Boyd noted that neither Kinch nor Midland Fox — the two complainants — had attended the public inquiry.