2011 – Issue 2 of 4

Keith Morris said “There was no question of unfair competition with CCT as they know
that we are more efficient”.
As well as objections from CCT, objections to the Llanrumney service were received
from Newport Borough Transport (NBT), the Wales TUC and Wales Transport 2000.
On 17 th Feb. CCT’s monopoly under the 1930 Cardiff Corporation Act was revoked by
the Minister of Transport thus enabling others to run stage services within Cardiff.
CCT were hoping that CK’s application would be rejected. Solicitor for CK accused the
City Council of trying to “throw a spanner in the works” by blocking CK’s bid to rent
council owned land at Portmanmoor Road.
CARDIFF
COMMENCED;
SERVICES
The plan to commence services
in Cardiff on 1 st March had
passed when the application
was heard at the Traffic Court
on 23 rd March. The solicitor
for CCT told the court that
CK’s plans would be
uneconomic. Ronald Jackson,
Chairman of the Traffic
Commissioners (TC’s), called
on the solicitor to apologise to
CK for calling their service a
‘wart’, ‘piracy’, ‘marauding’ and ‘idiotic’. Mr Jackson commented that in his 19 years he
had never had the misfortune to listen to such and scathing attack on an operator.
Licences (sp) were then granted to CK for 6 months. CK started the service to
Cyncoed and Llanrumney on 6 th April with actor Stephen Lewis -- ‘Blakey’ of ‘On the
Buses’ -- officially launching the services. CCT planned to “fight fire with fire”, with new
‘Family’ and ‘Multiride’ tickets, possibly cutting fares and bringing in a new ‘Fastfare’
system. Carol Morris said “We are confident that we are going to do well, we believe
the people of Cardiff are behind us, since they want cheaper fares and conductors on the
buses”. Since some of their buses could not be operated without a conductor they did
not have much choice.
Also in April Keith Morris stated he was seriously looking into running certain services in
Penarth in respect of services recently withdrawn by National Welsh (NW). (One would
have thought he had enough to do in Cardiff.)
CK gave notice that they would also introduce family tickets, apply to run a service to
Llanedeyrn, and to increase the Llanrumney service to half hourly. Meanwhile CCT
applied to increase its Llanrumney journeys from 6 to 8 per hour. CK increased their
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