Feb 2009 11

£310k ‘sensory bus’ left idle for 3 years6

According to the Shrewsbury Chronicle, Shropshire County Council has left a £310,000 sensory bus for people with learning difficulties idle for no less than three years due to interdepartmental bumbling.

The bus went out of service back in 2006 when the council’s only HGV driver went on long term sick leave but even when he left, the council failed to replace him. Instead this incredibly costly vehicle was garaged, the project halted, and the thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money that had been invested was presumably forgotten about.

 Sensorybus1 But if enraged Shropshire residents want someone to blame for this disastrous situation, they will only find themselves more confused, as two departments – the adult learning department and the passenger transport service – can’t even determine just who’s responsible for protracting this wasteful shambles.

One councillor, Alan Moseley, expressed his anger at this dreadful mismanagement:

“The vehicle has been off the road for all this time and it seems to be because of internal difficulties that this has proved impossible to resolve – it’s a bureaucratic nightmare.
“I’m disgusted with it and I will be demanding that a report come to the next meeting of the economy and environment scrutiny panel. It’s a disgrace.”

So, not for the first time, we have an example of a local authority so utterly bogged down in bureaucracy that they waste time, money and resources, all to the detriment of the community they serve.

There’s little doubt that this vehicle was commissioned with the best intentions – to help people in Shropshire with learning difficulties – and paid for in good faith with public funds but now, due to council inefficiency and confusion, both parties have lost out and due to the lack of any clarity there doesn’t even appear to be anyone to blame.

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  • Hardeep Singh

    Why couldn’t they have leased it out to a private company, charity or another public body? Once they resolve their petty squabbling they’ll reach a decision to halt the project once more on the basis that the equipment is now out of date or falls short of some health and safety issue, I despair….

  • Jerry

    That vehicle is not an HGV.

  • Retha

    I refer to the comment above – the vehicle is not HGV and therefore almost anyone can drive it. Complete waste of money by bungling idiotic bureaucrats who all want to be talked about as doing the right thing but don’t have the backbone to see it through

  • Michael Skinner

    The vehicle is not an HGV but a PSV and with less than 16 seats it can be driven by anyone with a class D1 on their driving licence.
    Shropshire would not let anyone lese use it, their transport department is run on very old fashioned Stalinist principles – public sector good, anything else unthinkable.
    The Council must have more HGV drivers as a 2006 Best Value report said they owned 24 snowploughs (or gritters)

  • http://www.hgvlgvtraining.co.uk sean@hgvlgvtraining

    The council should have done their homework in advacnce.

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