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Subsidized Rural Buses—A Success Story!
Page 62
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'THE successful launching of a new 1. subsidized bus service between Helmdon and Brackley, in Northamptonshire, was reported in The Commercial Motor on November 13. Operated by Jeffs Coaches Ltd., of Helmdon, it is a Fridays only service to the market at Brackley, and is operating for an experimental period of three months. Northamptonshire is, of course, one of the areas chosen by Mr. Marples, when Minister of Transport, for experiments with rural bus services, subsidized as necessary.
In this case, it was Brackley Borough Council which made the first approach, and this some two months before the rural schemes were drawn up. Brackley is a small country town with a population of only a little over 3,500, obviously a place which achieved borough status many years ago and has not developed since. The itown's market is a modest sort of affair—the day I went to Brackley only six stalls were to be seen—and there are not so many shops either. Obviously anything that the town's chamber of trade can do to improve business is welcome, and last year it organized a free bus service one day before Christmas to bring shoppers into the town from the surrounding villages. Guaranteeing a subsidy to local bus operators to meet any losses whilst providing buses from neighbouring villages to bring people into the town to shop is in the chamber's interest.
Herndon is a sizeable village, some four miles north of Brackley and now isolated from the town following the closing of the local railway station on the Great Central line. Certain early morning p.s.v. and contract journeys are provided in the area, but regular bus services are lacking. Jeffs' new service to Brackley leaves Helmdon at 09.05 arriving at Brackley at 09.20, and the return journey leaves at 11.00 arriving back at Herndon at 11.15. This gives housewives ample time to do their shopping and enjoy a coffee and chat before making the return journey.
The day I went up to Brackley was a crisp, sunny autumn day, and this would no. doubt have encouraged more people to travel than on the previous two indifferent Fridays, when only 10 passengers were carried on the service. On this particular morning the coach left Brackley on the return journey with 16 and a half fare paying passengers, plus one baby, on board. On the inward journey the coach had carried a maximum of 14 passengers, 13 from Helmdon and one from Redstone, a small village on the way to Brackley which cannot remember ever having enjoyed a regular bus service before. Mr. J. V. Jeffs, the son of the proprietor, who was driving on this occasion, told me that Brackley council owed him 2s. 6d. to make good the loss that morning!
Background to this country enterprise is a nine-strong fleet of vehicles run by Mr. R. J. Jeffs—eight coaches and a mini c22 bus. Until six years ago last June, Mr. Jeffs was manager of the coach business of S. Walters of Helmdon, with whom he had been for 22 years. When the Walters business folded up, R. J. Jeffs started out with one coach on his own. in the September of that year he won his first school contract and later, in November, 1958, started a works contract service to the Trueform factory in Brackley. Jeffs Coaches now have regular contracts to Trueform and to the large government vehicle overhauling base at Arncott, near Bicester, together with two other market services.
As his business prospered, Mr. Jeffs was joined by his son, who had been an apprentice at the Daimler works, and later in the experimental section. Office work in those early days was done by