Investment

Most of the rest of the £30m spent has gone on over 100 new vehicles in the bright branded liveries that have proved so popular with the company’s customers and helped earn it passenger satisfaction ratings consistently over 90%. Rather than displaying only vehicles from the new depot’s future allocation, the opportunity was taken to show a variety of the latest deliveries across the network, most of them with wi-fi and audio visual next stop announcements and some with plugs for recharging mobiles and tablets. These included an Optare Solo SR in the yellow and red Venture livery used in Consett, Door Forward Wrightbus Streetlites in the Drifter and Saltwell Park colours, a two axle Citaro in the blue used for Connections 4, an Optare Versa in the Citylink 58 orange, an articulated Citaro in gold for the MetroCentre X66 and no less than five differently adorned Volvo Wrightbus double deckers. These included one of the first of a batch of 17 for the Cobalt Clipper which will replace artics and operate from Gateshead. Other examples of the batch that had yet to be liveried could be seen outside in the yard. Gateshead will only operate diesel buses but one of Go North East’s hybrid B5LH deckers operated on the Angel service by Chester-le-Street depot was also to be seen as well as diesel B9TLs in Fab 56 (1 of 17), TEN (1 of 13) and Tyne Tees Express schemes.

As the new buses enter service the vehicles they replace are being cascaded through the fleet, with older buses such as Dennis Dart MPDs and SPDs, DAF SB220s and some Leyland Olympian double deckers being withdrawn. Incidentally, Gateshead Riverside isn’t the only Go North East property receiving investment currently. This month the 30 vehicle Saltmeadows Road operation is to see the completion of a £115,000 investment that will see new a wash, new fuel facilities and improved parking facilities.

Occupational Health

As well as being a key operational depot, the new premises will also be home to several important functions. Go North East’s recruitment and driver training, risk management and occupational health operations will also have new homes on the site, though the head office will remain at Queen Street in Bensham. A well equipped new training suite has been incorporated within the office building along with accommodation for the risk and occupational health functions though these had yet to be furnished at the time of the launch.

Over 2,000 applications to become drivers are received annually and from them 200 people are taken on and trained. Staff turnover at the company is 8.5%, most of which is retirement. To further ensure that the skills needed for the engineering department in future years are there, Go North East plans to double the number of apprentices it takes on annually from five to ten. With in house CPC training and engineer licensing among other responsibilities, the nine permanent trainers and the administrator at the centre should be kept busy.

Stephanie Young heads up both the Occupational Health and Risk departments

In charge of both the occupational health and risk management functions is Stephanie Young who has been with the company since 2000. She explained that the role of the two departments was, respectively, to look after the health and welfare and the safety of the staff. It is about a lot more than managing absenteeism, though preventing lost time, minimising it when it occurs by getting people fit to return and trying to ensure they do not become ill again is important, both for staff and the company. For both functions it is important to have policies and resources, as well as access and support from the different depots. In total, there are 24 sites, including travel shops, bus stations and out stations, that Stephanie and her team are responsible for.

Every member of staff can approach a member of the team at their place of work on an entirely confidential basis, without going through a manager. Whatever is wrong with a driver the team will try to assist or refer to someone who will be able to, whether the pain is physical or mental. If a driver has an issue, coming to the team will often ensure that he can see a member of the medical profession far sooner than he could have seen his own GP. A local GP comes in to conduct driver medicals, saving the driver the time and cost of organising this themselves, and a consultant occupational physician is also contracted in. Mini personal MOTs are conducted by NHS staff at depots. For those who need to be fitter, an arrangement is in place with a local gym, enabling staff to use its facilities. Health promotion and awareness programmes are run covering topics such as prostate cancer and help is also provided with issues such as blood pressure, diabetes and alcoholism.

From the starting point in 2000 when the absence rate was 5.8%, it is now down to about 3.7%, with many less people retiring because of ill health. One reason for the drop is that people are assessed before they are taken on to identify whether they are prone to suffering the kind of illness, such as chronic back pain, that would render them unsuitable for the role in the long term. Greater support for people in their employment is also a big factor.

The Occupational Health department has just achieved the bronze and silver ‘Better Health at Work Awards’ and is now going for the gold standard.

All of the occupational health nurses are both registered nurses and qualified PCV drivers, while the risk team are also PCV qualified.

On the risk management side, the starting point is compliance with Health & Safety and other legal requirements, making sure that all electrical systems are safe, procedures are risk assessed and safe, and staff are not brought into contact with potentially dangerous substances such as asbestos. There are also less obvious needs like the regular checking of water systems for Legionnaire’s disease. Route based risk assessments are carried out and drivers instructed on where the high risks sections are and what to look out for. A process of producing a booklet covering each route is underway.

Last word

Though the official ceremonies were performed on 28 January, the actual opening day was Saturday 1 February, with the buses rolling out of their old depots in the morning and coming off service to the new facility. Shuttles were operated to take drivers back to their signing on points to collect their cars.

With 160 buses operating 120 services and covering 163,000 miles between them every week, as David Brown pointed out, the Gateshead Riverside team is not just serving the local community, it is part of it.

Whilst the opening of the new depot was a happy day for the Go North East team, the continuing efforts of the local ITA and Nexus to force a franchising system on the region’s operators, despite massively impressive customer satisfaction ratings, huge investment and the fact that they are clearly not failing in any way, creates a cloud under which the business is forced to operate, consuming management resources that could otherwise be used to grow patronage. David Brown was not prepared to go as far as Brian Souter at Stagecoach who has indicated that he will pull out of the north east and take all of his buses with him if Nexus gets its way, but it must make planning for the future difficult. It is hard to believe that politicians can be so out of touch and wedded to dogma that they can’t see when they are getting a great deal. Does anyone think this new depot would have been built at all, let alone at no cost to the public, if Nexus were in charge?

By Stuart Jones