Madam,

It’s very sad to hear that Lewis Coaches has finished. This will certainly be a loss to the area and questions should be asked as to why three large bus companies in Wales have had to close.

I note that you stated in your article of 18 August (‘Lewis Coaches closes its doors, with loss of 40 jobs’) that Bryans Coaches took over the 701 services when Arriva closed. This is incorrect.

Arriva, in their wisdom, together with the Welsh Assembly, decided in February 2005 to take a coach off the service, replace it with a bus and call it the X40.

As the four-hour journey is unsuitable for a bus, there were many complaints and in 2007 Bryan’s Coaches (previously Coach Travel Wales) decided to reinstate the 701 coach service with a toilet on board on a Friday and Saturday, and numbered 701, from 12 October 2007.

An extra stop was put in at Port Talbot and concessionary passes accepted along the full route. As the service built back up this was increased to Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in February 2010.

A daily service started in April 2012 and a twice-daily service (except one on Sunday) in September 2012.

Arriva did not close until December 2013, so we were already operating the 701 service when they closed.

Our 701 service was operated on a commercial basis and did not receive any help from the Welsh Assembly nor the local councils and this situation continued when Lewis Coaches took over when I retired as operator of Bryan’s Coaches in September 2015.

We do hope that another operator comes forward to run this excellent service but it seems that problems over the payment for concessionary travel may be a stumbling block.

Yours etc,

George Bryan, Riverside Terrace, Aberystwyth.

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