Lakeside-Coaches-On-the-Road-Summer-2018

On the Road
Your in-coach magazine from Lakeside Coaches
Issue 5 - Summer 2018
In this issue...
New Faces
On the Big Screen
Croatian Adventures
• MEDIUM COACH OPERATOR OF THE YEAR •

In this issue...
Your in-coach magazine from
Lakeside of Ellesmere
Issue 1 Autumn 2015
In this issue...
Your in-coach magazine from
Lakeside of Ellesmere
Issue 2 Spring 2016
In this issue...
Your in-coach magazine from
Lakeside of Ellesmere
Issue 3 Summer 2016
In this issue...
Your in-coach magazine from
Lakeside of Ellesmere
Issue 4 New Year 2017
• MEDIUM COACH OPERATOR OF THE YEAR •
It's all in the
Training!
Neal Hall - Managing Director
Welcome to the
fifth edition of
On the Road which we
first published in Autumn
2015 and goes from
strength to strength.
lot has happened since the last edition of On The Road...
ON THE ROAD
ON THE ROAD
ON THE ROAD
ON THE ROAD
Last September saw us take over the 205 Whitchurch town service, making a
total of four town services now operated.
With a great team of dedicated bus drivers, we have seen our bus division go
from strength to strength, and September 2018 sees us take over the running
of the 449 commercial service between Ellesmere and Oswestry.
Autumn brought another business opportunity: Lakeside Training was started
and although training has always been a top priority, a chance encounter saw
us appoint Marie Pugh as Training Manager. We now have a dedicated training
facility here at HQ and can offer driver CPC - first aid and PCV driver training to
all of our staff and other 3rd parties on or off site.
Spring came along with a couple of new vehicle technicians, taking the
workshop team to 3: Joe, Jamie and John. Having had requests from some of
the local learning establishments and other local coach operators to undertake
their maintenance, our 4 bay workshop is working to capacity looking after
over 55 vehicles.
Passing on our success
The man who built this
CoachMarque Accreditation
Last word
Waiting in the back office
Read all about it
Passing on our success
Old vs. New liveries
Lakeside Velo
Going for growth
Route One Award
New Deliveries
A busy time of year
In April we were accepted onto the government pilot for Earned Recognition
(1 of only 9 U.K. coach operators). This is a government initiative to reward
excellent and compliant operators by ranking them as some of the safest on
U.K. roads. Our systems are now all paperless and the DVSA can log on to our
systems remotely to check on drivers' hours and all of our maintenance data.
We are very honoured and proud to be a part of this scheme and it's thanks to
all our team for their hard work and commitment - but without customers we
would not be the company we are today.
Thank you for your association with our company and I hope you all have a
great summer.
Tribute to Esteban Bonet-Pyle - Severn Hospice
t was with great sadness that our
friend and colleague passed away
at the turn of the year and at the time
we made a tribute to him, which many
of our 1,500 followers on Facebook
and 2,500 followers on twitter will
have seen. His wife Sandra, who is
an administrator in our head office,
would like to thank everyone for their
kindness and support. In Esteban’s
memory we have raised in excess
of £1,500.00 for Severn Hospice
and recently Marie Pugh our training
manager did a sponsored Macmillan
Colour Run in Oswestry.
2

Latest News
On the Road SUMMER 2018
Service Routes
- new service buses
t's been a very busy year, as it will be 12 months in September since we received a
brand new pair of service buses into the bus division to service the Whitchurch and
Wem Town Services, after they had been renewed for another 5 years.
These two have performed well and have been reliable and been well received by
passengers and drivers alike. Director Gareth Davies is pictured at the launch of the
Plaxton Enviro in Whitchurch with the Mayor and Mayoress. Since then, Luke Stephens
has been keeping the service running well. The Optare Solo has been allocated to Wem
Service with the ever dependable Gerald Cartwright at the wheel.
Earned Recognition
or what is usually a quieter time of year, in January, when a large
number of the vehicles are presented for their annual MOT and
servicing, things were a bit more hectic than usual for those in the traffic
office after we were invited by the DVSA to apply to join their Earned
Recognition Scheme.
As one of only a few leading operators in the country invited to join the
scheme, we were faced with a deadline of only a few weeks to get all the
audit standards met and ready for an 8 hour external audit by the FTA
ready for submission in time.
EARNED
RECOGNITION
Safer drivers, safer vehicles, safer journeys for all
Sam Hall, Duty Operations Manager
(right) led the project and had to get
everything collated and ready for
the 8 hour independent audit
to scrutinise our systems and
to make sure our electronic
systems were ready to
integrate and send information
proactively to the DVSA to
allow complete transparency.
This enabled us to be one of
the first nine bus and coach
operators in the country to be
allowed on the scheme.
3

Stop Press...
last minute update to this edition just
before going to press is that we are very
pleased to announce that we have been granted
permission by the Traffic Commissioner to run
the 449 Ellesmere to Oswestry Service Monday
to Saturday from 3rd September. This was being
dropped by its current operator, although it is a
fully commercial and unsubsidised service and
it is supported by the Transport Unit at Shropshire
Council. Local MP for North Shropshire, The Rt
Hon Owen Paterson, popped in to Ellesmere HQ
to congratulate Director Neal Hall as soon as
official permission was received
and to wish us well with
this latest local
service venture.
New Vehicles
new year and yet again more vehicles! The 4th and final brand new
arrival of 2018 has just been delivered. 2018 has seen two Mercedes
Benz Tourismos delivered to their allocated drivers with Phil Gaunt taking on
the tri-axle version and Denis Smith taking the two axle version in GB Tours
livery. One of the first of the new model MAN Neoplan Tourliners in the
UK has been well received by a very happy Dan Crute who hands over
HD14 LAK to Carl Ford.
Dan’s new love is the first in the fleet to feature USB charging points for
each and every passenger, so gone are the days of those flat smartphone
and tablet batteries!
The fourth and the smallest of the deliveries is an EVM Mercedes Sprinter
Elegance which has 16 luxurious leather seats, complete with a Mercedes
3 point star embossed into the headrests! This is complete with full window
tinting and is a proper little corporate vehicle almost identical to a sister 19
seater delivered in 2015. The EVM vehicle is pictured on the manufacturer's
trade stand at the Annual Blackpool Coach Rally.
4

Smart Parking
On the Road SUMMER 2018
napped by Doug Wooding, one of our coach drivers
who specialises in London Touring (and who sees
some interesting sights on his travels in the capital!) was this
“Smart” parking by the eponymously named vehicle in front
of his coach in a coach bay there. For anyone who thought
there was a lack of parking for vehicles in central London
the rest of us just aren’t thinking out of the box enough!
On a similar note in this next picture, whilst trying his best
at going undercover, the same driver may need a bit more
practice as whilst he is doing a good impression of a smartly
dressed lumberjack we still know its you Doug!! In Doug’s
defence, to prove it wasn’t a one off, the same car did the
same thing in front of Carl Ford’s vehicle too on another
occasion!
Olympics
ugust sees 6 years since
our vehicles were liveried
up for the London 2012 Olympic
Games transport, moving officials
and competitors across the
capital and surrounding areas
during a 3 week operation which
saw a small fleet of our vehicles
and drivers stationed in West
London throughout the games.
No Smoking!
moking on our vehicles has been prohibited for more
than 20 years now, and the need to remind travellers of
this policy is very few and far between nowadays. An area
which has come to the fore in the last couple of years, and
can often result in dispute, is that of E-cigarettes and vapes
etc. Whilst national public health policies advocate their use
as a less harmful alternative to smoking tobacco products, to
clarify the company position as regards use on our vehicles,
their use is prohibited at all times.
There is no blanket legislation dictated for bus and coach companies as regards this,
aside from our right to prohibit activities on our vehicles which may annoy, confuse or
threaten safety through flammability to our travelling customers and staff.
Defib
workforce about to tip over the 60 mark
and a successful local business park
surrounding our Ellesmere depot provoked us to
think about purchasing an AED defibrillator as a
precaution. The defib will be registered with 999 emergency services
and the keypad cabinet will be publicly accessible out of office hours
for anyone who has a cardiac arrest in the town.
Training Manager Marie Pugh will be providing defib training to
people locally and bringing the rest of the team up to speed with
it, although many staff have already undertaken this as part of their
Emergency First Aid at Work training.
ISO 9001
et again we have passed our ISO 9001 : 2015
audit. This is a replacement for the old kitemark
standard and we have held this for more than 10 years
now, being one of less than a handful of bus and
coach operators in the country to hold this. This is very
important for reassurance for our larger and smaller
customers alike, that our systems and processes are
documented and audited through our Quality Manual,
so a big 'well done' to Lindsey Evans, our General
Manager who leads on this project.
As a company that aims to promote healthy lifestyle choices, we are pleased that of our
staff who do smoke, many have given up in the last decade and also many have minimised
their health impact by switching to these methods. To accommodate smokers and to keep
hydrated, use conveniences etc., regular comfort stops are planned in to routes wherever
possible and if you are planning a private hire with us we would usually advocate a comfort
break roughly every 2 to 2.5 hours as a guidance.
5

12 Years in our New Home
ebruary 2018 saw us mark the 12 year anniversary of us moving into
our purpose-built headquarters on Ellesmere Business Park, which was
originally designed to house our fleet of 18 vehicles at the time. This was
opened by our Local MP for North Shropshire, The Rt. Hon Owen Paterson
(who is still our MP!) in front of 150 guests and a lunch and celebration
followed.
What couldn’t have been foreseen was that since then we have had to
acquire two neighbouring units and land to practically double the size of the
depot to allow us to handle 50 vehicles in line with our expansion plans!
Top right photo: The Rt. Hon Owen Paterson MP, Chairman John
Davies, Director Neal Hall
New Traffic Office
uring 2017, after 11 years at the original purpose-built coach centre,
a new traffic office has been developed within the original building
to accommodate our ever expanding operation and to house Operations
Managers Carole Sykes and Sam Hall and Training Manager Marie Pugh.
Here, like the rest of the office teams, they have their own climate
controlled workspace complete with wall mounted big screens
to watch the fleet tracking and CCTV feeds.
The vehicle engineers have a new office too, to
accommodate our three full-time engineers, who, despite
going paperlight, seem to need a large amount of
deskspace! They have also had their own rest facilities
created. On the first floor in the newest building we have
merged 3 offices to create one large training room capable
of hosting up to 20 candidates with audiovisual setup and a
break out area too.
6

New Faces
On the Road SUMMER 2018
nce again over the last six months or so we have had
another big intake of staff to complement our existing team.
On the administration team, the very experienced Helen Morgan joins us in the
role of Group Accounts Manager, having spent many years with a well known
and respected firm of Chartered Accountants.
In the engineering team Jamie Hazell and Jon Barker have both joined from a
National Bus Company. Jamie graduated through car and LGV apprenticeships
before making the switch to PCV-Bus engineering and gaining many useful
skills over the last few years. He now joins us to add PCV-Coach and Bus to
his skill set.
Jon joins us with over 20 years experience in the industry having spent many
years in a depot running hundreds of buses in Birmingham. Both his skill set
and his inability to be phased by any challenge are well appreciated.
A product of Marie Pugh’s training division is Paul Ridley who passed his test
with Marie, and, being a natural driver, has quickly settled into his role as a
tour driver. His experience in delivering high end performance cars and the
personal cars of F1 drivers has come in useful, as he is more than familiar with
dealing with precious cargos!
Also joining Paul in the driving team are experienced drivers Lee Brierley
and Paula Williams, who, until joining us, was manoeuvring long tri-axle
coaches around the scenic but narrow roads of the Scottish Highlands for a
touring company based up there. For us, she still drives tri-axles, but we try
to find some wider roads for her! Lee Brierley brings plenty of experience of
touring and private hire work and is settling in to the team well with his North
Wales charm.
Also joining are Steve Williams, Les Pugh and Russell Hawkins. Steve and Les
join from local coach operators and are both making good progress. New
to the area is Russell, who has spent many years driving double decker bus
services on the south coast, mainly in and around Brighton.
Marie Pugh joins as our new Training Manager - more about her later. Joining
for a second tour of duty is Luke Stephens, who is keeping the high frequency
Whitchurch Town Service running well.
On the yard team we welcome local lad Neal Evans who is Ellesmere born and
bred and has spent the last few years polishing up his skills as a vehicle valeter.
He joins us as vehicle valeter and yard assistant, working the late evening shift
prepping the vehicles for a quick turnaround.
Jamie Hazell Jon Barker Paul Ridley Paula Williams Lee Brierley
Marie Pugh Luke Stephens Steve Williams Les Pugh Russell Hawkins Neal Evans
Driver Profile
Name: Phil Gaunt
Usual Vehicle: BU18 YOL
Biggest Achievement: Making the journey, having arrived
here 12 years ago as a provincial bus driver, working my
way through the company to now having my own allocated
Mercedes coach entrusted to me (which costs more than
a lot of peoples houses) and touring the UK and Europe
with it.
How Long in the Team: 12 years in total
Favourite Route: I like a variety of destinations including
all the Irish tours, Isle of Wight, Torquay, Scotland but
probably best of all is Bantry Bay in Ireland.
Best thing about working at Lakeside:
For me personally, having an approachable and
supportive management team is very important.
Secondly having the fleet we do is great as
wherever we go in the country people always come
up to me and pay nice compliments.
7

On the Big Screen
or those eagle eyed viewers, you may
have spotted (well you could have
blinked and missed it) some of our coaches
out there on TV or in the papers. Not
for any publicity purposes this time, but
merely minding their own business and
inadvertently photo bombing some poor
old TV camera operator's shot.
Pictured is NH13 LAK transporting Ellesmere
College chamber choir on Songs of Praise,
HD14 LAK stuck in traffic on Helicopter
Emergency in York, and NH13 LAK featured
again whilst on North Wales coast rail
replacement duty in Rhyl and got itself
caught up in a rooftop stand-off whilst a
chap was threatening to throw himself off a
building late one Sunday evening.
IRTEC
ell done to vehicle technician Jamie Hazell
who, still within his first 6 months with us, has
passed his IRTEC exam for PCV vehicle inspection
and servicing. His new colleague in the workshops,
Jon Barker, is soon to follow to add to his impressive
portfolio of qualifications in vehicle engineering.
Joe Hall and Jamie have been busy completing
their welding and fabrication courses at Shrewsbury
College too.
HD14 LAK cameoing on BBC Emergency
Helicopter Rescue whilst in York
NH13 LAK making an appearance on
BBC Young Choir of the Year on Songs
of Praise
Transport Benevolent Fund
ife can sometimes unexpectedly get hard for any of us and our
families, so the company has signed up to the TBF for all our staff.
Directors Neal Hall and Gareth Davies first become aware of this great
society when at a Coach Industry Awards Dinner a couple of years ago, when their patron
made a speech about their work, and it is a benefit we have wanted to bring to our staff for a
while.
The TBF provides health, welfare and bereavement support to our staff and their families,
meaning that when the going gets tough, someone is there to help them - mentally,
physically and financially. Gary from the society has made presentations to the workforce,
involving some strange timings and early starts to be able to catch most of them!
From the Archives
his edition features some old snaps having had
the dust blown off the albums, and here we
see Chairman, John Davies, back in 1979 when he
took over the Lakeside Minicoaches business from
Charlie Boland, with just four vehicles. Fortunately
the 1980’s came and went, and whilst the business
grew, thank goodness the fashion for flared brown
suits accessorised with a striped kipper tie like John
is sporting didn’t!
Lakeside Way
ev Ogden, out and about
around Wembley whilst he
and his colleagues were waiting for
the unfortunate Shrewsbury Town
supporters to witness their second loss
at Wembley within as many months,
at least provided some amusement by
searching out road signs of interest.
Forget the Busby Way - maybe
Shrewsbury ought to play the
Lakeside Way?
8

Lakeside Workshop
eeping our fleet, and that of our
contracted-in maintainance jobs,
creates a lot of paperwork. So, in the early
part of this year, we took the brave step to
fully digitise our workshop system through
the use of a digital inspection application
for the full 5 weekly vehicle inspections.
This also integrates with our drivers'
first user daily walkaround tablets to
prioritise and allocate reactive maintenance
issues. Who would have thought that
next to their toolboxes, our engineers'
new best friends would be their individual
tough iPads!
On the Road SUMMER 2018
RKEEPING
OLLING
Joe Hall, Vehicle Technician
Jamie Hazell, Vehicle Technician
9

GB TOURS
Croatian Adventures
018 has seen us return to major
continental European tour work.
Apart from conducting tours across
the channel for a few long-standing
customers as part of their tour
programmes each year, it is probably
20 years since we did much European
tour work - as at that time, backup for
vehicles, drivers and our passengers
once beyond the Port of Dover or
the Folkestone Terminal was not
great, in all honesty, and saw us ply
our trade within the confines of the
British Islands and Eire. However, the
tour planners at GB Tours have done
some arm twisting and to launch
their continental program in style we
have made a return to Europe with
numerous 3,250 mile round trips on
their Croatian Adventures. In for a
penny!
These have been piloted
by some of our most
experienced GB crews as a
journey like this is a 2 person
crewing; Andrew Green, Dan
“Crutey” Crute, Phil Gaunt,
Will Davies and Gary Roberts
have all had their turns and have
all enjoyed a nice dip in the Adriatic as
their reward at the other end during
their down time before turning around
and heading for home.
Andy Green, Coach Driver
10
GB Tours - Extra Route
nother piece of good news for our GB Tours Route A
customers with pick ups in Liverpool, the Wirral, Ellesmere
Port, Runcorn, Widnes and Warrington, is that we have been
awarded this as permanent route to add to our GB portfolio. To
follow this up, another GB liveried 18 plate Mercedes Tourismo has
been put into the fleet.

Ellesmere Lakeside Coaches Fun Run
or anyone with children who fancy do a 2km run on Sunday 26th August in
Ellesmere alongside the adult 10km hosted by Oswestry Olympians, enter them for
just £4.00 and all finishers will receive a limited edition Ellesmere Lakeside Coaches
Fun Run medal.
On the Road SUMMER 2018
For the Lakeside Coaches
Excursion Programme 2018,
please call us on 01691 622761
Driver Downtime
ver wondered what your poor driver gets up to whilst
you and your group of fellow travellers are away from
the vehicle enjoying yourselves? Well, here is an insight
from Drivers Joe Morris and Alex Campbell who are busy
practising a bit of mindfulness together, making good use of
the vehicle's on-board coffee machine and reclining seats
whilst researching the next leg of their work diagram.
(P.S. Joe isn't very short, its just that Alex is very tall!).
Training Department - JAUPT approved centre
ctober saw our Lakeside Training Division established
with the arrival of our first ever training manager
Marie Pugh. She has arrived from the same role at another
local company and is very well respected as a trainer, and
has quickly established herself as a firm favourite with the
team and also with all of our visiting candidates.
TRAINING
As with any new venture, she has worked incredibly hard
to establish our training centre, which included getting us
national JAUPT training centre status, passing our audit
to become a DVSA PCV Module 4 approved test facility
and developing our training room by combining three
offices in our newly acquired building in our newly
expanded maintenance facility. She provides Driver
CPC training in both 8 hour and 4 hour sessions,
practical PCV driver training and Emergency First
Aid at Work courses for driving and non-driving staff.
11

For your Safety
Take advantage of breaks to get off
the coach and stretch your legs.
You can also use the following
exercises to keep circulation moving:
Seat belts are fitted in this
vehicle.
You are required by law to wear
your seat belt at all times while
seated and the vehicle is in
motion.
Please keep the aisle and exits
clear of bags and other items at all
times. Large or heavy items can be
stowed in the lockers. Smaller and
lighter items can be kept handy in
the overhead racks.
Bend and straighten your legs, feet
and toes.
While the vehicle is in motion,
please remain in your seat.
Please listen to your driver for any
announcements.
Press your feet hard down against the floor. You
can stretch your arms and relax your back and
shoulders.
A first aid kit and fire extinguisher
are located near the front of this
vehicle and can be identified by
this sign.
✗
✗
✗
✗
Emergency exit windows are
provided on this coach. In case
of emergency, please use the
hammer provided and strike the
window in the corners as shown
by the ✗
Avoid sitting with your legs crossed
for long periods. Have a drink of water on
hand and take regular sips to avoid getting
dehydrated.
front
rear
Emergency exits are located at the
front, middle or rear depending on
the vehicle. Please make yourself
familiar with the location of the
exits in this coach.
Thank you for travelling with
Lakeside Coaches
Enjoy your journey
www.lakesidecoaches.co.uk
© Copyright Lakeside Coaches Ltd 2018
The Coach Centre, Ellesmere Business Park, Oswestry
Road, Ellesmere, Shropshire SY12 0EW
Email: mailbox@lakesidecoaches.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1691 622761
Fax: +44 (0) 1691 623694