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Coach industry pleads for £370m bailout

A letter from the Confederation of Passenger Transport to Rishi Sunak, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, warns school bus services could grind to a halt if ministers fail to act quickly.    - John Stillwell  /PA
A letter from the Confederation of Passenger Transport to Rishi Sunak, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, warns school bus services could grind to a halt if ministers fail to act quickly. - John Stillwell /PA

Coach operators are pleading for a £370m taxpayer bailout amid fears for the future of more than 40,000 jobs across the industry.

A letter from the Confederation of Passenger Transport to Rishi Sunak, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, warns school bus services could grind to a halt if ministers fail to act quickly.

Industry chiefs want a cash injection of £65m a month until the end of the year, a bespoke job retention scheme and coach tour operators to be reclassified as leisure businesses so that they can access additional Covid-19 support.

Some 550 operators have signed the letter including larger firms such as Selwyns Travel, Park’s of Hamilton and Lucketts Travel, an arm of National Express. They said: “If we want to bring tourists back into our local areas, get people back in our theatres, shops, restaurants, cafés and bars, not to mention get people back to school and work, it is vital that coach businesses have the financial support to withstand the current crisis.

“We urge you to urgently look at what has been to date a forgotten industry and provide us with the support we need.”

Last month the owner of Shearings, a coach tour operator, collapsed into administration with the loss of 2,500 jobs. Mr Sunak is warned such a failure is in danger of being repeated.

“The sad collapse of Shearings is an indication of what could happen to thousands of family businesses across the country without direct government investment,” the letter reads.

John Johnson, of Johnson's Coaches, said: “Covid-19 has been catastrophic for Johnson’s Coaches with little to no bookings coming in and unprecedented levels of cancellations.

“The Government needs to urgently provide support to ensure that the sector can help in the economic recovery when people begin to travel again.”

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The intervention follows the failure of the wider travel sector to persuade ministers to step in with a bespoke package of financial support.

In April The Sunday Telegraph revealed Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, was considering a £4bn plan to guarantee refunds to customers whose holidays have been cancelled as a result of the pandemic.

Mr Shapps has declined to take the proposals forward following industry criticism.

Graham Vidler of the CPT called for an industry-specific extension to the Government’s job retention scheme. He said: “Ending the furlough scheme in October means asking coach operators to pick up wage costs in full in the midst of the low season for coach travel. Without this support many operators will go under as a result of the 18-month winter they are facing.”

A spokesman for the Tourism Alliance said: “The UK has the sixth largest tourism industry in the world, generating £145bn per annum for the UK economy and supporting 3.2m jobs.

The coach industry is a very important component of this success story.

“When the accommodation, attraction and cultural business reopen for business on July 4, the economic survival of many businesses will rely on the coach sector being able to bring visitors to them."