Despite a number of setbacks in the last decade, Chiltern Travel is still going strong. Trevor and Joel Boorman tell James Day the full story [wlm_nonmember][…]
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The challenges faced by Chiltern Travel over the last few years would be sufficient to make many operators say enough is enough. However, Trevor Boorman and son Joel Boorman, who operate Chiltern Travel and its recent acquisitions Herberts Travel and Shorey’s Travel, claim to have never failed to operate a service during the most challenging of times.
I had the opportunity to sit down with both of them to hear about the eventful recent history of the business, along with their thoughts on the challenges facing them today.
From classroom to coaches
Trevor was initially a PE teacher when his career began in 1974. He explained: “We used a lot of coaches, and in those days a lot of teachers obtained PSV licences. I was driving for a company called Alan’s Travel of Blunham.
“I bought Alan’s Travel and started trading in 1983 but I didn’t have the courage to pack up my teaching job entirely. I was still teaching until 1985. I would drive for a school contract, park the bus in the school yard, do a day’s teaching and then drive the bus for another school contract at the end of the day. I did that for two years, just about making ends meet.
“When my dad Charlie Boorman took redundancy from his job and came in to help, I left teaching. Myself and my father ran the business from a site in Sandy.”
The business moved from Sandy to its current location in Blunham in the mid-90s, growing to a fleet size of eight vehicles. Much of Chiltern’s work at this stage was for holiday companies, and the business successfully built long term relationships with Leger Holidays, NST and PGL, hiring out executive vehicles. It also ran a small number of vehicles on school contracts and private hire services.
Sadly, tragedy struck during this time, when at the age of 67 Trevor’s father died suddenly while working in the yard, although the Chiltern Travel business continued.
Selling up and returning
In 2011, Chiltern Travel became a limited company and the following year an offer was made to buy the company out. The business was indeed sold, but after two and a half years Trevor discovered that Chiltern Travel was in trouble when receivers moved in.
“I had a phone call one morning to say the receivers had moved in on the garage,” Trevor explained. “I found myself needing to salvage the company within three days.
“It was all to do with an unpaid VAT debt, and I ended up having to buy Chiltern Travel out of receivership despite the fact most of the vehicles and equipment still belonged to me. I had no option – it was either that or close the company down. Drivers’ wages needed to be paid and with no money in the company, I paid them myself out of my own pocket.”
Despite this situation, none of the company’s scheduled work was missed – all private hires and school services carried on as if nothing had happened throughout the process from the day the receivers moved in until they left in March 2015.
Not perturbed by fire
A further setback for the company was a major fire in January 2016. “I was on a course up in EvoBus in Coventry, and Gary who has been my transport manager for quite a while phoned me up and said we had a fire,” Trevor retold. “After 20 minutes, he phoned me up to say we had an even bigger fire and I had better come home.
“I came down the M1 from Coventry and by the time I got to the top of junction 13 for Bedford I could see the smoke. The whole place burned down, but Gary managed to move all of the vehicles out of the depot and we didn’t lose a single one. When I arrived, they were all lined up on the road outside and we actually fulfilled our school commitment that afternoon.
“While I didn’t lose any vehicles, I did lose everything else you need to run a coach business. All our maintenance had to be outsourced and we had to get portacabins in the following day which we worked out of.”
Work began to rebuild the structures at the Chiltern depot, but the situation took another turn for the worse when the builders that the company was employing went bankrupt halfway through their work.
“It wasn’t until August 2018 that we got the place up and running properly,” Trevor said. “The original intention was to have offices inside the building, but we restructured when the builder went broke and there was no longer room.”
At the time of the fire, Trevor’s son Joel was working in Dubai. He is the middle child of Trevor’s three sons and the only one currently involved with the business. “He felt sorry for me and decided he would come back,” Trevor mused.
“At some stage, we changed the business from Trevor Boorman T/A Chiltern Travel to Joel Boorman T/A Chiltern Travel. Joel effectively took over the business in 2016. The intention was that I should do a lot less and retire, though as is often the case in the coach industry it didn’t quite happen like that.
“The whole time, work has carried on as normal. We haven’t missed anything. We do pride ourselves on the fact that buses go out on time, and everything gets done that needs to be done. We all have our problems, but have ways of overcoming them.”
New acquisitions
Perhaps the most sure sign that Chiltern would not be defeated by the misfortune it had faced was the fact that in spite of its situation, the business was still willing to expand. It did so with the acquisition of Herberts Travel.
“At some point in mid-2017, I heard that the Dougall family was trying to sell Herberts Travel and go back to Australia,” Trevor explained. “It was the largest school transport operator in the area and I felt it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. That certainly put my retirement plans on hold.
“We bought the Herberts business and operated it from its depot in Bedford for nine months up until the end of the school term in 2018. Over the course of the summer holiday, the whole lot was moved over here to Blunham.”
Despite the Herberts fleet being considerably larger than Chiltern’s, increasing the size of the operation was not what Trevor found most attractive.
“It was the people and the skills we were interested in more than anything else,” he noted. “Herberts was a very well-run company – the Dougalls did a good job.
“Herberts Travel uses much older vehicles than Chiltern, but they are fantastic and are maintained by a bunch of mechanics and engineers who are the best you’ll find anywhere. They need to be to maintain the type of vehicle Herberts uses. They have skills which are disappearing now – they can rebuild a vehicle from top to bottom and keep it on the road, even though some of the buses 20-30 years old.”
Chiltern also took over Shoreys Travel at the end of August 2018, after the company had finished school services at the end of July. A long-established business of at least 50 years, the Shoreys Travel name will continue to be used, though most of the company’s vehicles were not acquired during the takeover. The Shoreys premises in Maulden did transfer to Chiltern, however.
“Shoreys was a long-standing school bus operator and the family decided to retire,” Trevor said. “We took over the name, phone number, a couple of vehicles and a couple of school runs.”
Opposite fleets
Chiltern Travel’s vehicles are executive coaches, virtually all of which are from Mercedes-Benz. In 2008, the company received a batch of five Setras which have been gradually replaced by Tourismos, although one still remains with the company.
Since the early 2000s, all Chiltern vehicles have been acquired new. The first vehicles bought were Mercedes-Benz Hispanos, followed by Mercedes-Benz Touros, the batch of Setras and finally Tourismos, the vehicle of choice today. “I’ve been quite a good customer of EvoBus over the years,” Trevor mused.
“EvoBus is a very good firm when you’ve got a problem – they will do anything to get it sorted. The UK part of EvoBus is excellent. We operate throughout Europe, and while the European branches are not quite as quick, you can still reliably get problems sorted out on the continent. You just make one phone call to the breakdown scheme and things get done.”
Chiltern Travel has also used a pair of Neoplan Tourliners in the past, but Trevor said: “I found they didn’t suit us.”
By contrast, 90% of the much larger Herberts Travel fleet of 52 vehicles pre-date 2000. The fleet is made up of Volvo Olympians, Leyland Olympians and Dennis Tridents.
Trevor said: “If we could get a whole fleet of Volvo Olympians for Herberts, we would. Those are our favourite vehicles. Joel added: “Of the Herberts buses, they have great seating capacity, are the most reliable, probably the most economical and their parts are readily available. We can keep a Volvo Olympian on the road forever.”
Most of the Herberts fleet are either ex-Lothian or ex-Bournemouth Transport buses, the bulk of which were purchased through Ensignbus at the time.
Joel noted: “Everything in the Herberts fleet is liveried up. We get a lot of business from awareness on the road because of this, and it helps keep things tidy.”
When Herberts was acquired, there were two exceptions in the fleet – a pair of 92-seater Neoplan Skyliners. One of these has since been sold, while the other is in the process of being replaced with a Van Hool Astromega.
Current services
Trevor and Joel’s business is now sending out 36 vehicles every day on school contracts. Chiltern travel continues to supply vehicles to the holiday companies it has worked for, with 10 vehicles out at any one time on average. Three of its Mercedes-Benz Tourismos are Leger Holidays branded and to the firm’s Silver Service specification.
Trevor said that Chiltern Travel is also the longest serving operator for Interski, going back to the mid-1980s. Each ski season, Chiltern provides around 30 trips to the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps.
Joel commented: “I used to drive a group out there and ski all week, but I can’t really do that with this business now – it’s a bit big!
“I still go on the occasional trip,” Trevor mused. “I can justify going down there in the winter because we often have four or five vehicles in the valley at any one time.”
There is however some crossover between the two fleets. A lot of private hire work is available during the day from schools in Bedfordshire, particularly from the four private schools which Herberts serves. Now, Chiltern can cover some of that work with more highly specified vehicles.
Joel explained: “The calls will come in for Herberts, and if a Herberts vehicle is not available or is not the type of vehicle that the school is looking for, or the work is more long distance, we can send a Chiltern coach instead.
“Most private hire work for Chiltern is from schools now – there is not a lot of adult work around and we don’t generally do late nights, though we will do long distance tours into Europe.”
Developing the business
Trevor noted that his company’s recent history has been ‘a bit of a whirlwind,’ but did give some details on how the business is progressing.
The Herberts maintenance staff are now taking on the Chiltern fleet, which means they have needed to learn about Mercedes-Benz coaches. At the time of my visit, three of them had been on a day’s course.
“They are gradually learning about Tourismos and they clearly want to learn new skills, which is good,” Trevor said.
“When the premises were properly up and running after the fire, the Herberts mechanics put the workshop together in a way which suit them. We invested in brake testing equipment for them to use and have also put in a planning application to put two more bays on the new building to increase its size.
“The DVSA’s Earned Recognition scheme is something I would be looking to do in the future, because our mechanics are so good. I would also like to have our own test lane.”
Future vehicles
While the entirety of the Chiltern fleet is Euro VI, the Herberts fleet is obviously not, though the company works hard to keep its vehicles as clean as they can be.
Joel said: “The problem we face in replacing the Herberts fleet is that there is nothing on the market which can replace the vehicles effectively, unless you can justify paying £300k per bus.
Trevor added: “Both the local councils we serve have a requirement for high capacity buses with seatbelts and CCTV. The only way we can provide a vehicle which will conform with that is to look for something pre-2000.
“In some areas, schools have a 15-year age limit on the buses which serve them, but not here.” With Clean Air Zones (CAZs) a hot topic at the moment, I asked whether the company had any concerns.
Joel responded: “If a CAZ did come in there would be advanced warning and we would just have to put everything in place to adhere to those regulations. I’d like to think we have the financial standing to go out and get what we need, or apply retrofits to our buses.
“We’re well aware that we will have to steadily update the fleet, but for now it is not a priority because there’s not anything on the market that’s as good as what we have. We need a long wheelbase bus which is easily seatbeltable. For a large new high capacity double-decker, the price is prohibitive. We get bus spotters here every week because we’ve got some of the rarest vehicles out in regular service.
“The long wheelbase Scanias that are coming up are a possibility. Some ex-Dublin Bus ALX400s would suit us, but they are not fitted with a tachohead which limits the private hire you can do.”
A driving shortage
Joel said that he would like to expand the business, but the potential for this is limited due to a shortage of drivers. A future concern could also be replacing mechanics. While Bedford College runs a motor vehicle apprenticeship course, few students seem to be interested in commercial vehicles. “We’re very lucky with the drivers we have,” Joel noted.
Trevor added: “The Herberts drivers all took four hour per day contracts. There is a mixture of ages, but many of them are older drivers.
“A shortage of drivers is an issue you see everywhere. For Chiltern, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get good quality tour drivers who are prepared to go away for most of their lives. People just don’t want to do it anymore.
“Chiltern has got some very good tour drivers. There are a lot of guys who have worked for me for a long while who originally came from Poland. Those guys know the job inside out, but we have not had any new Polish drivers start for five years and I don’t think we will get any more of them. That’s partly because the Polish economy has picked up. A lot of the people came here to earn reasonable money, then went back and built their own houses and so on. We just can’t replace them.”
The company is taking proactive steps to address the problem. It recently acquired a training bus from Stagecoach and has successfully put one person through training who is now driving on a regular basis.
Joel continued: “We have a qualified trainer who works for us, who will also be carrying out our CPC training in house which we will be paying for.
“If we can find the right people, we will happily train them to drive. The problem is you can spend a lot of money on people to train them up and once they are qualified, they disappear. Driver training requires quite a lot of input from the applicant before they can start. It is all very off-putting to someone who just wants a part-time job.
“We used to get a lot of ex-bus drivers, but Stagecoach keeps their drivers on for longer and longer now. They will offer them split shifts or job shares because they are desperate to keep their drivers on as well.”
Trevor said: “The driver shortage is the biggest problem in the job and is going to get worse. When we moved the Herberts vehicles to here, we were anxious that a lot of the drivers wouldn’t want to come. So, we put an annual bonus in place which they get in July if they’re still with us at end of the summer term.”
Always dependable
It was clear that Joel and Trevor pride themselves on providing a reliable service. “Like any company, you’re going to come across problems out on the road on occasion, but we hardly have any issues and we have a lot of spare vehicles,” Joel said. “Nobody can send out a spare quicker than us.”
Trevor added: “There is room for companies to be well run and still make money, but you need to be careful. We have never had a bad debt, for instance. I will only work for companies who I know will pay us. A lot of holiday companies went down in early 2000s, but all the holiday companies we work for pay promptly and we have never had a problem.”
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