Flagship fleet scrapped amid 'green' fuel debacle

Published 15 Oct 2009 14:25 8 Comments

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READING Buses' flagship fleet of bio-ethanol buses will be scrapped because of spiralling costs after it emerged they were never actually run on sugar waste as advertised.

The embarrassing revelation is the latest blow to beleaguered bus bosses, who say they were "deceived" over the source of the fuel, and it sparked an attack from the Conservative opposition on Reading Borough Council.

Transport chiefs say it emerged last week during discussions about fuel costs that bio-ethanol E95 fuel, made from residues of softwood as a by-product of pulp and paper manufacture, has been used to run the fleet of 14 vehicles, rather than bio-ethanol made from sugar waste as was originally agreed.

The borough council, which owns Reading Transport, says it has been "grossly mislead" and transport leader Cllr Tony Page called for an investigation.

He said: "I have instigated an investigation as to why and how this has happened, given the assurances that were provided to the council and the Reading Transport board about the source of the fuel."

Stuart Singleton-White, chairman of Reading Transport, added: "It is completely unacceptable that both the board of Reading Buses and the Council have been deceived over the type of bio-ethanol fuel that has been used over the past year. "We join the borough council in calling for an investigation of how this decision came about and why this information has only just emerged."

But Conservative transport spokesman, Cllr Richard Willis, said this afternoon: "At the time these buses were introduced Conservatives challenged Labour councillors on the economics of the bio-ethanol engines and were assured that this had been carefully investigated and the economics stacked up.

"Serious questions will now be asked about how such misleading and inaccurate statements were made by leading Labour councillors and what this does to Reading's environmental credentials."

For more on this story see next week's Reading Midweek.

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Colin Lee
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Oct 15, 14:16
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Cllr Page,

RBC and Reading Buses was told in no uncertain terms from day one that your source of biofuels was not as you described. You should have checked then. You owe a very big apology to us; particularly to Paul Bardos who was the subject of gross insult and abuse from the then Cllr Waite over the subject.

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howard thomas
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Oct 15, 21:22
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Cost of sorting out this problem----currently unknown.

Cost of getting the egg off the councillors faces (and ex-councillor Waite in particular)-----priceless.

You owe Paul Bardos a grovelling apology Mr Waite!

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A Dunn
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Oct 15, 21:26
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Either i`m barmy and missing the point or the Council have lost their marbles even more than usual.So i take it this spat is over where the fuel is derived from as originating from a waste product-Er.....who cares whatever the buses run on ethanol is ethanol at least a by- product is being used to do something useful rather than being wasted;much better than unleaded petrol which is more harmful than leaded and not the other way round as they`d have you believe.I suspect none of these buses will be scrapped even this stupid bunch of idiots wouldn`t throw away millions of pounds worth of equipment-there again i don`t trust them not to either-but i`d trust The Chronicle to misrepresent everyone with one of its catchy headlines.I am rapidly losing my patience with this council,this National Gov`t,Politicians in general,the general public,and i suspect there`s not a single party out there that is any more competent than any other in particular the tories,labour,lib dems,green -EXPECT Council Tax to double within 5 years and an inflation rate-the real one-to be 16%+ and interest rates at 9%-students of economic history may well agree with me,i`ve seen and remembered this all before-i hope i`m wrong,i hate to tell you i seldom ever am.

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******
Oct 16, 03:48
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pickled wizard
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Oct 16, 10:36
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Congratulations to the chronicle for running a job advert for a vehicle technician alongside the article just as i oped it to read it!

I'm so glad I live in Cornwall!

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Know it all
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Oct 17, 13:30
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As we all alaready run on E95 through most forecourts due to the RTFO and other Government legislation should we actually be raising the point about why the council thought doing what is already done by most was news worthy at all? When will local government wake up and understand that being green means more than just filling up with B5 or E95 and claiming this is being more green than a majority of the general public doing the same... action is required and local government are way behind the times are are not leading by example.

SO what if the ethanol was sugar beet or paper pulp or any other waste it would have come from a huge great tank in Rotterdam or similar and no one could advise on where the ethanol had come from in a million years - this is just not how the system works. Local Governement and others need to ensure they are workign with consultants that are honest and can substanitate any claims they make. It would not have been difficult to have checked these facts and understood the fuel market before you went ahead. I am sure you continued to use the same fuel distributor or a well know brand for the "Biofuel". I am also not sure why costs are spiralling or the project has to be scrapped or the buses removed from route - talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. JUST GET ON WITH IT AND STOP RUNNING AWAY. We all except you look like pillocks but you WILL make this worse if you scrap the fleet and waste the money invested.

X

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Miss W
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Oct 17, 19:30
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"Know it all".... You may want to change your name.... E95 on most forecourts? I'd be interested to see that, E95 is the rating of Ethanol fuel used to power the buses. Unless you really do KNOW IT ALL, the only other people using Ethanol to power road vehicles in England, is a bus company in Nottingham. I believe you may be refering to the Octane rating of petrol with your comments.

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howard thomas
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Oct 20, 23:34
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Know it all----the money wasn't invested ---it was wasted

Miss W --you seem to be spot on !

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Jonathan
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Oct 29, 14:49
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Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, I've been away but I'm totally surprised on returning to read that Reading Buses and Council had "only just" found out that their fuel was not what they thought - because I told them this in June 2008!

After getting no-where asking direct questions to Reading Buses, I spoke to Peter Watson of British Sugar on 24th June 2008, and he followed up with an email clarifying that it was never "sugar waste".

I then forwarded this to Reading Buses and Reading Borough Council - about 3 days later I got a very, let's say "robust", phone call from Sam Simpson from Reading Buses. He proceeded to launch into a hatchet job on Dr Paul Bardos (more on him later) basically saying he was Tory and therefore biased and incorrect and he hated the environment and wanted to kill fluffy bunnies and kittens with hoses run from exhaust pipes into their warrens etc (or something along those lines), and that bioethanol was definitely a waste by-product of growing sugar beet.

I also had the following reply from Reading Buses board member Warren Swaine in reply to "were Reading Buses conning us?":

"As far as RTL is concerned, conned is not the right word. There was a misunderstanding which wasn't cleared up until after the initial publicity had gone out. Reading Buses acted in good faith when putting together the publicity as they were under the impression at the time that it was actually waste product."

Also, in the Reading Forum, on 24th June 2008, he also wrote in reply to further questioning on this:

"I will ask. They cannot lie, spin or whatever you wish to call it to me... I'm a director!"

It appears they were always going to be safe though - when I contacted the Advertising Standards Authority explaining that I felt this "sugar waste" claim to be misleading, I received a reply dated 22nd July 2008 explaining that they do not cover:

"statutory, public, police and other official notices/information, as opposed to marketing communications, produced by public authorities and the like".

I did try and persue this explaining that I felt the sign was a marketing communication, but they we steadfast.

I got a reply from Reading Trading Standards with an almost identical position - as Reading Buses was a council owned company, they could do nothing.

Around this time, I also made contact with this Paul Bardos who Sam Simpson had mentioned. Dr Bardos appeared to have had a similar experience to me - asking lots of questions but getting a lot of brush-offs in the process.

All of this, multiple emails etc, happening across June and July 2008 - unfortunately I moved and changed jobs at around that time, and having tried the best I could, this got pushed to the back of my mind.

But I don't believe for one second that this is a "surprise" to anyone at RTL or RBC - unless they had a two month long "flash forward" style amnesia moment during June and July 2008!

If anyone wants copies of the relevant notes and emails, feel free to ask.

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