Vandal attacks leave bus owners with £20k repair bill
A spate of three vandal attacks in as many days left buses out of action and the owners with a repair bill of more than £20,000.
Three buses parked in the yard of Sandwell Travel, in Tinsley Street, Great Bridge were targeted each night from February 7-9 by yobs.
The vandals smashed 24 windows on the buses over the three nights and damaged panels using a hammer.
Randeer Dhanda, traffic manager at Sandwell Travel, said the buses could not be used for four days, which resulted in the company, which has been running for six years, losing customers to rival operators.
He added that since the incident, returns on fares had more than halved due to passengers looking elsewhere.
"It is going to take some time for us to build our trade back up. There were three nights in a row of utter devastation and it has paralysed us and it is going to be hard for us to get our trade back. We have been losing our regular passengers and it has just been utter devastation," Mr Dhanda said.
The firm runs five buses on two routes, including four on the 333X through Willenhall, Lodge Farm, Darlaston, Walsall and one on the number 80 which travels between West Bromwich and Birmingham, while there is one spare bus which is kept at the depot in case of breakdowns.
The 333X service runs every 20 minutes, with the last service at 4.55pm.
Footage from CCTV cameras at the Tinsley Street base showed three youngsters on bikes riding up to the parked buses and carrying out the attacks, which resulted in staff from the company setting up a trap by parking one of the buses in the yard and then sitting in nearby parked cars to see if the vandals would turn up for a fourth night in a row, although on that occasion no attack was carried out.
However, the trio did turn up again and Mr Dhanda was able to follow a member of the group, who was riding on bike, to a nearby McDonald's restaurant where he was able to take a photo of him on his mobile phone.
He added the business only had third party insurance on its buses and was therefore unable to make a claim.
The incidents happened at around 11pm on each night and the windows smashed on Monday, February 9 had only just been repaired the previous night.
Police said fire extinguishers were also stolen from the three buses.
A 16-year-old was arrested in the aftermath of the attacks and is currently on police bail.
