Jonathan Welch speaks to family-owned Cambridge Buses, where daughter Kaylee is regularly asked if she’s old enough to drive the school bus…
We often visit companies which have long histories of family ownership in these pages, both in the UK and abroad. The coach side of the industry especially is full of small, medium and even some quite large family-owned independent operators which are in the hands of second or third generations. We’ve featured a number in recent weeks, from Scottish independent Maynes of Buckie to Spanish multi-national Moventis.
A small Cambridgeshire operator set up by David Collier and Dave Hackshaw is Cambridge Buses, which undertakes local schools and private hire work from its base in Fen Drayton, around 10 miles north-west of Cambridge city centre. The next generation of the family is taking a keen interest here too, with daughter Kaylee, now 19, being a regular driver of the company’s school services, among other things.
We spoke to Kaylee and dad David to find out more about the company and why Kaylee chose to join the family business. Founder David started off by explaining a little about the business and his own background: “I passed my PSV test in 1990, and worked for a number of companies doing trips and tours all across the UK and Europe. We founded Cambridge Buses in 2015, and we started operating in 2016,” he said.
“My wife Katherine also drives, and looking further back, both my parents drove too. Looking even further back, my mum’s grandfather had a coach business years ago, so it’s a little bit in our blood. Our focus is mainly on home to school transport. We carry approximately 3,000 students every day to and from school across the Cambridgeshire area. That’s our niche.
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