Sorting centre
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To buy the new site, fence it and landscape it cost the :ompany some £185,000 and low yet another site has been acquired next door which will 3ventually become the sorting :entre through which all the 3econd-hand vehicles acquired will pass.
Every incoming vehicle is horoughly inspected before a iecision is taken on its future. some which have valid :ertificates of fitness are 3fferecl for resale imfnediately while others received in good :ondition are prepared for e-certification by the :ompany.
Other buses are exported as :omplete vehicles ready for further service overseas while still more are dismantled and the mechanical components sold off while the remainder goes for scrap.
Restrictions What happens to buses that come into Paul Sykes hands is not entirely dependent on the condition of the vehicles. This is because of the restrictive clauses that some National Bus Company subsidiaries write into the tenders for disposal of .buses that prevent these being
re-sold for service in this country.
Paul Sykes feels very strongly that this restriction is loosing National Bus an enormous amount of money that it could pick up from sales of old vehicles. For some buses I would offer around £2,000 if I know I can re-sell them, but if have to dismantle them for parts then the offer price must drop to only £250 or so apiece," he said.
"I'm not doing this for my own benefit. If all the buses I bought had to be sold abroad or dismantled I could do it easily; I could flatten all my competitors. What concerns me is that NBC, a public company, is throwing away a large source of income."'
No re-selling
With the NBC Western Region, Mr, Sykes has a limited amount of success as coaches were removed from the restriction and can now be sold to anyone. But by then the Eastern Region of NBC had also started writing into tender documents a clause . forbidding the buyer of old buses to re-sell them to any company in competition with NBC.
Whether NBC should sell buses to its competitors is a debateable point, but one thing really does stand out clearly: if they are to be .dismantled then they should be sold only to responsible dealers who do not litter the countryside with old wrecks.
• Martin Watkin,