Creditors are to meet to discuss the finances of a former Aberdeenshire coach company which ran a school bus that was condemned as “the type of vehicle found at the bottom of an operator’s yard with trees growing out of it”.
The appointment of a liquidator, and the possible setting up of a liquidation committee, for Keirs Coaches (Kintore) will be decided during a meeting at the offices of Invocas in Union Street, Aberdeen, on September 14.
Chartered accountant Donald McNaught was recently made interim liquidator for the Hill of Cottown company, which previously operated eight vehicles.
Keir Coaches’ sole director, Graham Keir, held the bus operator’s licence until his resignation last October.
The company’s licence was revoked in March this year after a Traffic Commissioners for Scotland hearing in Aberdeen, which heard a Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (Vosa) examiner call a bus used to take children to Alford Academy as the worst public-service vehicle he had come across in his 12-and-a-half years’ service.
The examiner told the hearing: “Generally a vehicle in that condition was the type found at the bottom of an operator’s yard with trees growing out of it – as an out-of-use, discarded vehicle.”
Vosa carried out its maintenance investigation after a multi-agency check on school buses at Alford Academy pinpointed a series of faults.
Keirs was involved in private hire and taxi work as well as school transport.
The firm had its contract revoked in March on financial and professional competence grounds. Traffic commissioners stated in their inquiry report: “How anyone could let that vehicle go to transport schoolchildren is unbelievable.”
A spokesman for Invocas declined to comment yesterday on the financial issues involved before the creditors’ meeting had taken place.
Kemnay businessman Alan Findlater is now operating a new bus firm from the Hill of Cottown premises.
The 27-year-old, who also owns a Deeside painting and decorating business that holds the royal warrant and who only recently took over the Laird’s Throat pub and restaurant at Kemnay, operates 14 coaches at Kintore involved in private hire and on school-run contracts.
Mr Findlater said: “Premier Coaches is a completely new firm which was set up under a new operator’s licence.
“My business Premier Coaches has nothing at all to do with the liquidation process, and I am actually planning to move from Hill of Cottown to new premises shortly.”