Sargeants Brothers has a long tradition of operating rural bus services in Herefordshire, but a change in ownership in November 2019 has seen the company become ‘21st century ready.’ Richard Sharman paid a socially-distanced visit to find out more
In a former woollen mill in the small village of Kington, Herefordshire, just 2.2 miles from the border with Wales, a small bus company has been quietly undergoing a transformation which has seen significant investment in the fleet, maintenance and on-bus technology.
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Starting out in 1928 as Sargeants Bros of Kington, the company was started by Charlie Sargeant, the grandfather of the Sargeant brothers. This was to be the beginning of stage services in the Kington area and beyond as some Welsh independents were purchased. Over the years the business passed from Charlie to his sons Keith and Tony, and then their sons Charles, Michael and Huw. Coach hire and school contracts were the main focus of the business for a time before stage services began to grow again in 1981 and 1986, when tender gains were won from fellow Herefordshire operator Yeomans. The main gain was the Kington to Hereford work, which is still operated today as the 461.
In terms of the fleet, over the last two decades, several interesting and rare vehicle types have seen use. But there has always been a preference for Optares, with a Prisma-bodied Mercedes-Benz 0405 being new in 1995 and low-floor Spectra VA51 SAR following in 2001. More recent rarities have included a pair of MCV eVolutions with two very different chassis, VX12 FBO being the rare Mercedes-Benz OC500LF variant and BF62 UYM being a standard Volvo B7RLE, but having some history as a demonstrator with Volvo.
New ownership
Matt and his wife Kerrie Evans took over the reins of the company in November 2019. Matt recalls how his journey into running his own businesses started: “My history is in engineering. I started as a fitter at a main dealer truck garage, and I then moved to a fire engine manufacturer as a research engineer for them but I was never at home – I thought ‘I have got to make a go of it on my own.’ I started my own garage, just down the road from Eardisley, with £30k and a Transit van.
“I worked at it for four years before having the opportunity to buy the current site that Tech Trucks is based on now, initially starting with just the workshop site. I have, over the years, expanded by buying the land around it. In 2008 I used the profits from the garage to start buying recovery trucks and expanded the business to offer both workshop and recovery; we now have a 12-acre site here, some of which has been used to store preserved buses for the last 10 years, with numbers increasing in recent years thanks to Bromley Bus Preservation Group members.
“So that was my only initial involvement with buses, but then Michael Sargeant came to me around three years ago now explaining that he was looking to sell out as there was a lot of investment needed to keep the company going. So in November 2019, I used the profits from Tech Trucks to buy Sargeants Brothers. I stood in front of all the staff at Kington and explained the situation, and the response was that everyone was enjoying the work but it was the fleet that was letting it down. As I got to know the team I thought that you would struggle to find a better group of people to work for you as they are all very focused on trying to deliver the best possible customer service.
“There is something special about owning a bus company that used to take my mum and then me to school – I didn’t want to see this part of history disappear. Maintenance and vehicle recovery is something that I could instantly provide with having Tech Trucks, so it was just a case of getting the fleet and operations right.”
This is where independent PCV Transport Consultant Jason Bush was brought in to help. He has significant engineering and operational experience in the bus industry, and explained how the new ownership came about: “Through a contact, Matt got in touch with me and asked if I would be willing to help him, so I came over and looked at the operation. The company found itself in a position where it was facing a public inquiry with serious consequences if it didn’t make some radical changes to its maintenance and procedures.
“When Matt bought the business he knew there was a lot of work to be done, which included major investment and improvements to systems and processes. Through the first two quarters of 2020, he was making good progress but needed some assistance with the operational management side.
“The thing that struck me immediately was that he had invested early on in the fleet but there were a few things to be done to make it a cohesive and modern bus operation. So I got involved and we have pushed on through to get everything right. At PI the Traffic Commissioner for the West Midlands was very pleased with the systems and processes we put in place and concluded the hearing with no further action taken.
“Once we got that process out of the way we then went about taking what is a cracking, historical business and fast-tracking it to be 21st-century fit.
“Matt’s goal was always to buy a local business that he had an affinity with, and Sargeants Brothers was the perfect fit. We both knew that changes had to be made quickly throughout the business, but then Covid-19 hit. Despite this, Matt decided that everything that we had planned with a newer fleet and implementing new systems and processes was still going to go ahead. So we have carried on from there and we now have everything we need to manage a bus business. In the coming weeks, Natalie Amos will be taking over as our NTM and General Manager.
“We understand that our brand really does stand for something in Herefordshire, as does the bright red livery, so it’s very important for us to maintain our identity rather than changing the name or the livery,” said Jason enthusiastically.
Large engineering functionality in a small operator
“When Matt took over ownership of the company, the fleet was running with vehicles that were on average 13 years old, and that brought with it some significant reliability issues which are what led to the interest of the DVSA. So we needed urgent investment in the fleet, but throwing money at the problem does not solve it. You need to have the driver defect reporting system on point, capturing little things before they become bigger things, and to make sure that your preventative maintenance inspections are of sufficient quality along with the defect rectifications,” explained Jason.
“Running an old fleet on a shoestring can mean that stuff gets missed and then it isn’t long before unavailability of the fleet can blight every day of operation. So the key objective was to get the fleet age profile to a sensible place where the business could cope, and bring in all the quality maintenance procedures to get the product to the point it is today.
“The new Optare products are great for our duty cycles and have gone down well with driving staff and customers, but our IRTEC maintenance staff at Tech Truck have also got to know the vehicles well. We stock all the major service parts and components as well as windscreens to ensure everything is to hand for servicing or defect repairs. So Matt has brought large engineering company functionality to a small independent operator, which has now aligned to give us that quality product.
“The previous fleet investment program was around buying a new bus every now and then and running it until the end of its operational life, whereas the rest of the fleet would be mid to late-life, with the new bus being the pride of the fleet. Matt’s background is in the HGV industry so rather than buying one brand-new bus, he will buy two or three that are two years old and withdraw some of the older fleet.”
Matt explained: “Maintenance and vehicle recovery is something that I could instantly provide through Tech Trucks, but it was really a case of standardising the fleet. When I took over we had a number of MCVs, but some were Mercedes-Benz and some were Volvo. I wanted to take one make of vehicle and move forward with that. Initially, we tried the ADL Enviro200; it’s a great product and we like it, but it is just too wide for the services that we operate, whereas the Optare products are a much better fit for us. It has also meant that myself and the management team can go to bed at night knowing that we have a reliable fleet that will start every morning and all the vehicles will run out without issue.
“Since November we have purchased at least 10 Optares that have been only a couple of years old, and the support we have had from Optare – Steph Baker and Neil Brain in particular – has made them stand out from the crowd.
“However, to find the sort of vehicles I wanted has often meant making very quick decisions to secure them as many are seatbelted and in high demand, but that has allowed us to deliver quality at pace.
“In terms of the effect of Covid-19, it has allowed us to make changes to the fleet during a period where the PVR has been greatly reduced. It’s not ideal to be investing all this money when income is down due to fewer passengers and so on, but when things do return to some sort of normality we will be in exactly the place we need to be with everything.”
Bus routes and school dinners
“Due to the rural nature of our operating area there are some routes that require vehicles of a certain size to operate them. Many of our routes operate where the trees are nearly touching the mirrors and if you meet another vehicle coming the other way there are not many passing places or someone has to reverse back,” said Jason.
“We have the former Optare Solo SR demonstrator YJ67 GEK, which is the smallest version they do, and that serves us really well around Knighton on service 41 where it is very tight.”
Operations Supervisor David Lloyd continued: “In terms of the other routes, we are currently using the bigger vehicles in the fleet to ensure that social distancing can be maintained for the essential workers that are still travelling with us, so the other Optare Solos in the fleet are kept as backups at the moment.
“The Optare MetroDecker has its own duty and driver, which revolves around the college in Hereford where it operates a 861 and 461 service at peaks, but it is unable to operate the 461 section of route between Kington and Llandrindod Wells due to a low bridge on the route.
“Pre-pandemic, all the routes were busy during the peak periods, mainly with large numbers of students travelling from rural areas to Hereford and back. Students are quite happy to use connecting buses which meet at Kington, and the drivers are very aware of these connections and keep each other and the office informed if there is any late running due to traffic.
“We operate eight school runs using belted PSVAR service buses. But perhaps the most unusual service we provide is the transportation of hot school dinners from the main school in Kington to the infant school just down the road, and the company has been doing that for decades. But that is what the business is about, it’s from the community for the community.”
Looking after the driving staff
“There is a real balancing act to follow between making this a modern operation and not losing the connection to the company’s heritage. For example, we have a fantastic team of drivers here and we all agree that even under new ownership it still feels very much like a family business to work for, and there is no reason why that can’t carry on,” said Jason.
“As part of bringing in new processes we talked to the driving staff to see how they felt about the changes and if there was anything else they felt they needed. The main feedback that we received was that they were enjoying the new fleet, increased reliability and the maintenance being head and shoulders above where it was.
“Requests received included further clarity on processes in certain situations whilst on the road, so we created a drivers’ handbook, but the biggest request was for the ability to offer contactless payment. We sat down and thought about it, and thought why not.
“Your offering as a bus company is about customer service, and we are blessed in that sense as Kington is a small town with a population of around 2,000 people so everybody knows each other. The environment – which we have addressed with the new fleet – and ticketing is also paramount.
“We were already running Ticketer machines, and we’re receiving great service support, so I phoned them in October and explained that we had invested in lots of new vehicles and as 2020 had been such a dismal year we wanted to start 2021 with some good news for our customers. By December we had end to end tested and carried out a soft launch, a press launch in January and now we are just waiting for customer levels to return to normal, once lockdown is lifted.
“But in terms of Covid-19 and contactless payments we are leading the charge for this option in terms of independent bus operators in our area. Additionally, it is a must for the safety of our driving staff. With the small numbers of customers that are travelling at the moment we are seeing 20% of them moving away from cash, but once lockdown is over we are hoping to see at least 30% of our customers choosing this option.
“We try and maintain a one driver, one bus policy at the moment. So you find that the vehicles are better looked after as our drivers take care of them. We currently have 17 driving staff, but we are recruiting for two more at the moment.”
Looking to expand
Despite the rural location of the operation, Sargeants Brothers is keen to expand: “We already work with Powys County Council over the Welsh border on stage carriage work and school transportation, along with Herefordshire County Council, and we have a great working relationship with both of them,” explained Jason.
“Going forward we will put in contract bids that not only represent good value for money but are also high quality, as the vast majority of the fleet is now Euro VI as well as being seatbelted.
“In terms of service work and commercial opportunities, there are some well-established and smart operators in our area. We are a Herefordshire-based company, so I think that is where our initial focus is concentrated on. We are running a fleet strength of 20 vehicles with a PVR of 14 vehicles so we have the spare capacity should any opportunities come up; we don’t want to restrict ourselves, and we would consider any opportunity to expand that comes up.”
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