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A ray of (NBC) light
Page 39
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• Future prospects for the National Bus Company are a little more hopeful than indicated by the company's annual report for 1970 (page 23), Mr A. N. Todd revealed at a Press conference in London on Wednesday. Mr Todd, who retires at the end of this year from his post of NBC's chairman, said "I am now able to record an improvement, commencing in the last two or three months.
"While much can happen between now and December 31, I feel reasonably confident that in the absence of unavoidable external factors, the company should be able to show an operating profit for 1971." Mr Todd warned, however, that it was most unlikely that the £8m profit target, before interest and taxation, could be met.
"We have a hard task in front of us, full of difficulties," he warned. "We come back to the major basic problem of who is to pay for services regarded as socially necessary which can only be operated at a loss." Mr Todd made it clear that he referred to unviable services throughout the field of bus operation, and not just rural services.
The improvements now being recorded resulted directly from the measures adopted last year to relieve the crisis situation which had been approaching. "We knew what was happening and let it be known long before the cash crisis arose at the end of the year," Mr Todd remarked. During a discussion which followed Mr Todd's statement, Mr T. W. H. Gailey, chief executive of the NBC, said that only £2m of the standby loan of £6m granted to the company by Mr John Peyton, Minister for Transport Industries, had been taken up so far.
Pressed on the subject of further fares increases in addition to the record ones introduced during the past year, Mr Todd stated that there were "none in the pipeline".