Sir,

In response to the recent letters about school buses to Greenhill School, I would like to respond, on behalf of Silcox Coaches, as follows:

• With regard to seat belts, we have a number of vehicles fitted with seatbelts that operate journeys to and from schools within Pembrokeshire, including Greenhill School. However, the numbers of children who make use of seatbelts when they are provided are few and far between.

During the first week of the current term one particular school bus had three seatbelts vandalised, requiring all three belts to be replaced.

• We admit that there may have been overcrowding on the bus from Saundersfoot to Greenhill School at the beginning of the term, but problems do occur at the commencement of a school year as we are uncertain how many children will require transport on any given route.

As soon as we were aware of this particular problem we put a larger bus on the route, a 69-seater. Latest figures show that the average number of passengers being carried to Greenhill School on this bus are 54 with a maximum of 57 - with 57 children on this bus, this leaves 12 spare seats. It must be realised that problems of this nature do take time to sort out.

• We continually monitor the timekeeping of our buses and during the week commencing Monday, September 22, all buses have been at Greenhill School before 8.40 am. Our target is for all buses to arrive by 8.35 am. The Saundersfoot bus (a service bus) is timed to arrive at 8.28 am. There can be operational reasons for delays such as traffic congestion and the issue of weekly tickets on a Monday morning to schoolchildren. Figures show that approximately 90 per cent of children travelling from Saundersfoot purchase a weekly ticket on a Monday morning - this is bound to cause a time delay in departing Saundersfoot compared to the other mornings of the week. On Monday, September 29, the bus arrived at Greenhill School at 8.33 am and on Tuesday, September 30, at 8.28 am.

Regarding the comment, 'quite often breaks down', I would strongly disagree with this statement. A breakdown did occur on Monday, September 8, but a relief vehicle was sent out immediately and the children were no more than 10 minutes late arriving at school.

• It is not for me to comment on who should or should not be entitled to free school transport. However, it would appear that most people do not realise that school services where children have to pay to travel to and from school, including this service in question, are subsidised by Pembrokeshire County Council. It would not be economical for these services to be operated on a commercial basis, without a considerable increase in the cost of fares.

May I assure your readers that Silcox Coaches are fully committed to providing quality cost effective bus and coach transport to the people of Pembrokeshire and I feel that we have been unfairly criticised in some of the recent letters published.

K. W. Silcox,

Managing Director,

Silcox Coaches,

Waterloo Garage,

Pembroke Dock