Ta-ra to Tates Travel

Tates Travel, the independent bus operator in South and West Yorkshire is no more from this evening following news that at 17:00, the company is no longer trading following liquidation. It's perhaps therefore worthwhile to have a look back at the highs and lows of the Barnsley-based bus company.

Tates Travel, or Tate's Travel as it was back at the start in 2003 was founded by Graham Mallinson who ran a private hire minibus around the Stocksbridge area of Sheffield. They then branched out into running a school service before expanding reasonably rapidly into this field. Commercial services between Barnsley and Mapplewell soon followed in 2005 running service 18 between the two.

An expansion into West Yorkshire followed with the purchase of Stanley Gath Coaches in Dewsbury. This allowed the company to increase its offering of bus services in Barnsley but also Wakefield. With this, the company moved to a depot at Barugh Green in the South Yorkshire town.

Several contracts were awarded to Tates by SYPTE which saw the brand move into Penistone before further wins with WYPTE in 2012 which resulted in their operating map spreading out towards Pontefract and Hemsworth.

The Dewsbury Free Town Bus, another contract from the PTE happened in 2013 and the operator was at that point running 55 bus routes, despite a brief flirtation of trying commercial services in Rotherham against the dominant operator of First South Yorkshire. Tates struggled to gain any momentum here and quickly retreated.

It sounds like a beautiful story, but as with most things, there's another side to the tale. Tates Travel had grown far too quickly and stretched its assets beyond its capabilities. Reports came in 2014 of vehicles breaking down, arriving early, very late or just not at all. The website which previously was a haven of up-to-date information was no longer touched and even now still advertises routes that have long gone.

As the months went on, service levels dwindled and routes were cancelled with some passing to other operators, leaving most of their operations on West Yorkshire PTE contracts. The awarded Dewsbury Free Bus passed to another operator and the standard and presentation of vehicles nosedived further.

The Traffic Commissioner inevitably got involved and broke the news that they were heading for a fine in excess of £18,000 unless they could convince them that the money could be used to give their long suffering customers a better deal. Fortunately, for them, the Traffic Commissioner, Kevin Rooney decided not to fine Tates and instead insisted the company introduced technology to assist with future compliance, that being real-time information and smart ticketing to deliver the improved service. Due to the cost of this being in excess of the £18,150 that the company was being fined, the issue was quite simply "dealt with".

Unfortunately very little changed with none of the suggested improvements being realised and the suspicion that these were just words to avoid the massive payment required. Complaints continued in abundance and the company suffered driver shortages with many of the staff finding work with competitors Stagecoach Yorkshire and Arriva.

This of course did little to help with the ongoing issues with bus services and the standard didn't drop (although it couldn't have fell much further) the promise of new technology was as far away as winning any new contracts. The end was indeed in sight.

That day arrived today, Monday 8 February 2016 when both PTEs advertised the end of Tates Travel by 17:00. It is not known how many people will lose their jobs as a result and that is the most saddest part of the whole debacle. Whatever the failings, innocent frontline staff will now be on their way home to tell their families that they are out of work. I sincerely hope that they find new positions very soon.

The issue now is how to fill in the missing gaps. Stagecoach Yorkshire have expressed a suggestion to consider taking some commercial services on. The tendered work for the PTEs is a little easier of course but it's little comfort to those who relied on Tates to get them to work. Well, some of the time at least.

Personally I suspected that Tates would go one of two ways, the first where an operator would look to buying them out, or it would miss the boat and collapse. I'm just sorry for the workers that the latter has become the case.

Good luck to all those looking for work this evening. That's the real casualties in this tonight.