How Many Vehicles?

One of the major events that occurred during my latest period of absence from the wider world was the first stage of DDA legislation becoming active.

The criteria for this change was that any vehicle under 7.5 tonnes and over 22 seats must have been fully accessible from 1st January 2015.

Essentially this was a death sentence for the Mercedes Minibus on which we had relied since Cotswold Green began and accounted for most of the vehicles changes last year! And so we said farewell to N912 ETM, N913 NAP, N951 NAP, N966 NAP, N967 NAP and S530 RWP.

All, except N912 ETM which went to a preservationist, went to Chepstow Classic Buses.

I have kept one though! N730 RDD which did some stirling work for us right up to the end of 2014 remains as a possible preservation project when time and funds permit!

Stage two of the DDA legislation hits at the end of this year seeing off the last of the non compliant single decks (T404 UCS, N64 KBW and R976 XVM). We have already had a clearout of other vehicles that did not comply with W483 OUF, W605 CWX, R448 LGH and M101 WBW going to UK Bus Dismantlers at Bromyard.

With all of these departures we welcomed the arrival of some compliant vehicles to the fleet bringing new levels of complexity and different headaches!

The New Dark Ages

And so I return to the Bloggosphere after another period away! I find it difficult to write when furious or when I have no time to think rationally about events. Both of these states of existance sum up where my mind has been lately.

But Cotswold Green continues to bumble along doing what it does best, serving its communities and providing a home for displaced persons!

Now I have reunited myself with the Blog and enjoyed reading some of the posts, perhaps in the same way as finding your teenage diary in a box in the attic, I will endeavour to add further to the history of Cotswold Green...