Welcome Back

You can’t keep a good man down and that certainly applies to bus entrepreneur Clayton Jones just like it did with the Dunn dynasty. When Jones sold his Shamrock (Wales) to Veolia, his agreement precluded his starting again for three years within a 25 mile radius. It’s reported he tried to do a deal with Veolia to start earlier (by promising not to compete with Veolia) but this apparently floundered.

In October, the three years will have elapsed, after which time he says he will launch competing services against Cardiff Bus. It will be interesting to see disgraced Cardiff Bus’ response; following the Welsh traffic commissioner’s condemnation over 2Travel, Cardiff Bus can hardly protect its business in quite the same way. Cardiff Bus is effectively on a final warning. In fact, Jones was a critic of what he felt was a toothless traffic commissioner’s ruling but the commissioner’s position could work in Jones’s favour.

Jones is already reported to own a number of Dennis Darts, painted in black with a yellow cross in the style of the flag of St David. St David’s Travel will be his trading name rather than Heart of Wales or Bus & Coach Wales as originally understood. He’s also reported to own a brand new Mercedes 814 minicoach with a rather businesslike eastern European body.

St David’s Travel’s new Facebook pages (growing rapidly at 86 freinds as at 0700) suggest that over the next few years the firm will offer “quality travel in Cardiff and surrounding areas at very affordable prices” by focusing on “high quality low fair (sic) bus services with innovative solutions”. The advertised start date is 15 October 2009, exactly 70 days from now.

Though Jones’ livery is black, his re-emergence will again add a little colour in the valleys.