5 June 2006

AN innovative community transport company is to move into a new, environmentally-sustainable depot after gaining commercial property help from Harrogate lawyers Barber Titleys.

Harrogate District Community Transport is to create a new sustainable model premises, thanks to a series of property negotiations by commercial property lawyer, Susan Poole.

The transport company, founded in 1991 and part-funded by Harrogate District Council and North Yorkshire County Council, needs the new premises to expand because of growing demand for its services which it claims represent the UK’s purest interpretation of the Government’s aspirations for an integrated transport strategy.

Harrogate District Community Transport - known as The Little Red Bus Company – is to move into the new 4,500 sq ft depot and offices at Saltergate Business Park on the outskirts of Harrogate in September.

GOING PLACES: (L to R) Susan Poole of Barber Titleys and, at the wheel, Lyn Costelloe at Saltergate Business Park, Harrogate, where the new Little Red Bus Company depot will be.

A total of £150,000 funding is being contributed by North Yorkshire County Council to enable the company, which has an £850,000 turnover, 56 staff and operates 25 buses, to create exemplar sustainable premises featuring energy efficiency, wood-burning stoves, solar panels and recycled rainwater for washing vehicles. Most of the company’s income derives from passengers.

The new depot will allow the business to relocate from premises it has outgrown in Harrogate town centre and implement a growth plan which will allow it to take on more staff and double its number of buses. Part of the company’s remit is to help develop similar organisations in Malton and Bentham.

As well as advising on property contracts, Barber Titleys also negotiated special terms over the tenancy to justify the investment of public funds in the environmental premises and allow the sustainable approach to become a long-term model for local businesses.

The Little Red Bus Company says it offers one of the purest forms of integrated transport in the UK by operating a `call-and-response’ service in local communities liaising with passengers and other transport bodies to provide a wide range of travel solution in a way which minimises the numbers of journeys made.

As well as taking on public service routes regarded as uneconomic by mainstream transport businesses, The Little Red Bus Company provides transport for a range of passengers who would not otherwise have access to transport including the elderly, disabled and those in isolated areas as well as fulfilling contracts for school transport and other community services.

Chief executive, Lyn Costelloe, says: “As a true community organisation which people at government level have told us is breaking new ground in terms of integrated transport, we believe in putting something back into the community by way of environmental care and sustainability.

“It has been vital to have the right team and the support of Susan Poole at Barber Titleys to negotiate on our behalf has been absolutely vital.”

Susan Poole, a former in-house legal manager at Leeds Bradford International Airport, says: “Lyn is totally committed to what she is doing for the local community and this added a new impetus to our work through the value to the community of what will be achieved by the new premises.”

Press contact: Mike Clarke, Mike Clarke Communications. Tel (01423) 568847