After serious consideration we were forced to suspend route 321 with immediate effect. This was not a decision taken lightly but it is just not reasonable for us to compete with a substantially larger company that has chosen to operate a free service, whilst it is subsidised by Milton Keynes Council. The various aspects of competition law are most clear that such mal-practice is not permitted. Additionally, the contract between Redline and Milton Keynes Council specifically prohibit this. Nevertheless, Redline appears to have taken a calculated risk that any consequences to them from Milton Keynes Council would be minor and a price worth paying to gain sole operation of the route. We have operated a Sunday service on this route for over a year as a good will social service at some considerable cost to the company, something no other company has done, to provide transport when the previous operator left the people on this route abandoned, early in 2013. We have operated our Sunday route to a high degree of reliability and punctuality and would have continued to do so Monday-Saturday had our service not been interfered with by this larger rival. Milton Keynes Council has received assurances that this practice has now ceased. We do not share their optimism as this operator had previously provided this assurance on Monday and then totally disregarded it. We find it a bizarre situation whereby taxpayers money is being used by a Council contractor to operate aggressively against a commercial operation that was offering lower fares which would have cost the tax payer nothing. We are unable to comment further at this stage as we are taking legal advice on how best to proceed, and any further comment may be prejudicial. -ENDS-
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 19:12:49 +0000
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