Survivor?

Companies in Lancashire have till 27 September to enter the 2007 Lancashire Telegraph Business Awards. One name that won’t be present is East Lancs Coachbuilders. The administrators went in on Friday and reports suggest the phones are now being answered as ‘The Darwen Group’, following a buy out. Little is known of the company behind the reincarnation, other than it’s linked to green vehicle manufacturer the Tanfield Group. What is known, though, is the 360 jobs at ELC and North West Bus & Coach Repairs appear currently safe. It seems that it will almost be business as usual on Tuesday.

The man behind the two-year old management buy-out said in the local newspaper, “East Lancashire Coachbuilders had been struggling for 18 months or so.” No one seemed prepared to buy it as a going concern, hence this short period of administration. A symptom of problems may have been its promised new web site, due at the turn of the new year, never materialised beyond a mock-up front page.

It seems that investment in Euro IV, operators pressing for delivery in spite of slow chassis throughput from manufacturers to ELC, a dual-door London Scania failing its tilt test, and windows allegedly falling from the new Esteem-bodied MAN single decks have all had an effect.

To date at any rate, East Lancs has survived the turbulence that has affected the UK bus manufacturing industry over the last 40 years. Long may it continue to do so. We need a strong and above all competitive manufacturing sector. But it’s been a difficult path for ELC. We suggested why in June 2006.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For some, recent ELC products have often seemed ever-so slightly wanting, when compared to the remarkably handsome EL products of the late 1970s and early 1980s. But no one can argue that either Scania-fronted Omnidekka, the Esteem and particularly the double deck Olympus are anything if not attractive.


Upper photo is of ELC's 1998 Alusuisse lighter, lowfloor ADD99 prototype, unveiled in 1998