A company that failed to run long-distance bus services from Tayside properly has been slammed by the traffic commissioner.
Fishers Tours, which is based in Dundee, had initially been ordered to pay a fine of £12,650 but this has now been quashed and a ”strong formal warning” issued.
An investigation in 2009 by the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency which found that seven buses meant to run between Tayside and various other parts of Scotland had failed to operate and 24 others had arrived at stops early or late.
An inquiry came to the conclusion the services had been a ”sham” to collect subsidies without any real intention to comply with the timetables.
Fishers Tours, which is run by James and Catherine Cosgrove, denied this and a long appeal process involving the Court of Session followed.
The case ended up before another traffic commissioner, Nick Jones, for a decision about whether a fresh public inquiry was needed.
He said: ”Bus compliance officers observed the partnerships’ buses running but missing out a number of registered stops on the route. The partnership claimed this was done to make up for lost time and amounted to a reasonable excuse.”
Mr Jones dismissed this argument, saying it defeated the purpose of registration, which was to let passengers know when buses would arrive and leave.
But he was critical of the length of time it had taken for the case to reach him partly due to administrative delays and decided it would not be right to hold another inquiry.
He explained: ”The observations were carried out by bus compliance officers employed by VOSA who undertook roles which included monitoring and checking adherence to registered timetables.
”VOSA no longer carries out what a traffic commissioner would describe as a real enforcement role in respect of compliance with bus timetables.
”Partly as a result of the delay in this coming to my attention, I could not make any adverse finding as to whether services were registered as a ‘sham’ without more recent additional cogent evidence to support such an assertion.
”There is no one who is currently capable of investigating this.”
Mr Jones noted Fishers Tours would probably have spent more on legal fees than the now-quashed fine, anyway.
”So if I do not seek another public inquiry it does not mean that the partnership has got away with matters,” he said.