RHODRI CLARK tells the story of the bus operations of Llew Jones, an independent operator in rural North Wales, which expanded significantly last year when unexpected opportunities presented themselves
At Llew Jones’s Llanrwst offices, 2016 started like any other year. Little did the managers know that by the year end their company, based in the beautiful Conwy Valley, would be employing 30% more staff, operating scheduled bus services across a wide swathe of North Wales and running scheduled coaches as far away as London and Essex.
This expansion was unplanned but came about through circumstances beyond the company’s control, primarily the demise of Wrexham-based GHA Coaches in July. GHA went into administration a week before the start of the school summer holidays, leaving local authorities to scramble for new operators for schools transport as well as scheduled bus services.
For some routes in the rural south of Conwy and Denbighshire, the councils had no realistic alternative to Llew Jones, one of the few local operators that GHA had not acquired. In this regard, that frantic summer weekend was an amplified echo of the circumstances that brought the Llew Jones company into being in the first place…
