I don't think that was the error. The error was running a registered bus service without paying for the any of the buses.
Yes, mistakes happen, business go bust, that's life. However, considering the attention he's received within the industry and still posting publicly, apparently as the MD of another company (which is apparently a public transport operator running all of the ex-CityFox brands that no longer exist) I don't think there is anything wrong with discussing it.
Thank you for creating the platform for a more reasoned discussion. You are quite correct, it is a perfectly reasonable subject for discussion, but it's impossible to have that discussion when people are more interested in my sexual preferences, completely made up allegations about wrecked pubs, comments about selling matches to Cornwall, descriptions of unconnected operators as "cowboys" and so on and so on.
I make the point - respectfully - that the other great failing of discussion forums generally, apart from a tendency to make things up to suit a narrative, is that some posters often behave as though they feel the operator must be answerable to them, when in fact this is absolutely not the case. Many business issues are complex and multi-layered, whereas they are presented here as black and white, and often there are commercial or legal reasons why the full facts cannot be placed in the public domain. This is not an issue specific to this thread - I see it in many other threads (the First Group thread being a good case in point at present).
I recognise that people can only discuss what they know, and if stuff can't be made public that makes it harder to discuss, but the answer is not simply to make things up to fill the gaps. My sense is that very few of the people on this forum actually know Rhys, have worked with him, or have been directly affected by any of the issues discussed. Without seeking to defend him specifically, there is a huge amount of jumping on bandwagons from people who are suffering from classic confirmation bias, and choose to believe things they read that confirm their preconceptions, without applying any critical analysis. The most useful piece of advice ever given to me (by the late, great Chris Day, Commercial Manager of Buffalo Travel 1991-1995) was "believe nothing you hear, and only half what you see". There are at least two sides to every story, and very often more.
Just to be clear about my own position, my full time occupation is as Head of Commercial for HCT Group. As such, I'm not involved with Rhys at all on a day to day basis - my day job is largely in Manchester and Yorkshire now (I'm writing this in a hotel in Wigan), so we're a long way apart - but we remain in touch as friends and he knows he can always come to me for advice and guidance. Whether he chooses to follow it is up to him! I was involved formally in 2016 (full time for a period), and then on an ad hoc basis from autumn 2016 until I went full time with HCT. As such, I'm close enough to know a lot of what has gone on, but not close enough to know everything. I neither can nor wish to be a spokesman for him, but I'm happy to correct the record where appropriate. But please understand that if I disagree with him or think he has said and done something wrong, as does happen, I discuss it with him, not with this forum.
It's worth also adding that in addition to my day job, I do casual work for a company called CES in my spare time (with the full knowledge and agreement of HCT). CES is a company that was set up by a good friend of mine, the guy who ran the special event transport for Go South Coast until he was made redundant following the 2012 Olympics, and offers event traffic management and event transport services. Its main clients are Southampton Football Club and Hampshire Cricket Club, organising shuttle buses to events and sometimes providing traffic management and car parking services. On most Southampton FC matchdays you will find me checking permits in a club car park or standing next to a 'road closed' sign. CES has been organising the shuttle bus provision for the Cricket World Cup fixtures at the Hampshire Bowl, and I have been running the 'on the day' operations (and taken holiday from work to do so), which has been massively enjoyable but sadly there are no more fixtures there so it's back to the day job for me! CES is not an operator, nor aspires to be so, which means that it contracts in all the bus provision. The primary contractor since the business started has always been Wheelers Travel. It so happens that Rhys has had a business relationship with the owner of Wheelers for far longer than he has known me, and with time on his hands is now doing a fair bit of freelance work for them, which has meant that we've been in the same place at the same time on many occasions over the last few weeks (thus confirming several alleged 'sightings' on this forum, which any good detective could have confirmed simply by looking at my social media!) I can exclusively reveal that Rhys is a popular member of the team there, well liked, self-effacing and intent on improving standards (just as he tried to do for me in a very short space of time at TM) and the day to day relationship between him and colleagues is as far removed from the image portrayed of him on here as it is possible to be. I am not party to any discussions between Rhys and Wheelers about his future involvement, if any, so I can't offer any insight into whether it will be a long term relationship or not. But it's a great example of the distortion that exists on this group, that his loyalty to a long standing business owner, as displayed by some proud social media posts is portrayed as 'he is now working for them' and then seamlessly migrates into something far more sinister ('he must be trying to take them over or portray it as his business') without any basis in fact. He is simply doing some work there, proud of what he is doing, and since he presumably has to earn money somehow, why shouldn't he?
As for Foxstar, I don't necessarily know all the detail but I know all the big picture stuff because we had many discussions and I visited occasionally. I know that it represented a genuine effort on his part to show that he could run buses 'properly' - in some ways a response to the criticisms made of him in the past. And whatever you might think about the way it ended, it's very difficult to argue that he wasn't doing a good job of running it. The buses were immaculately presented, the drivers smart, publicity very professional and the service very popular. You only have to look at the social media following to understand that the service was very well liked - especially compared to the incumbent - and people were very sad when it went.
The suggestion that he deliberately set out to obtain buses without paying for them is totally wrong and profoundly offensive. I know for a fact that he made regular payments to the leasing company, and right up until a few weeks before the end, had a good relationship with them. However, good intent doesn't pay the bills and it's clear that he fell behind and wasn't able to catch up. But that's vastly different to setting out with malicious intent. I don't know all the circumstances around the repossession. I know that shortly before the end there appeared to be a payment plan in place, and then something appeared to change very abruptly and suddenly the leasing company appeared to harden their position. I don't know why - it's none of my business and I'm happy for it to remain that way - but given that he was leasing buses from them from at least July 2018 onwards (possibly before, I'm not really sure), you can be pretty damn sure that a company like Dawson Rentals wouldn't leave it 8-9 months to take their assets back if they weren't being paid at all. The short-lived buses from Ensign were borrowed in an attempt to keep things running, and then given back very quickly when Rhys realised the futility of the situation (again, the suggestion that they took them back or didn't understand the situation when they let him have them is a complete fabrication).
I know enough from the figures I saw to know that The One was just becoming profitable in its own right, but anyone who has run a small business will know that there is a vast difference between profit and cash flow. Unfortunately it appears that late payments from corporate customers, coupled with the start up costs of a new route, simply meant that the cash ran out. So for those who are looking to find a more sinister explanation, I'm afraid this is a simple case of a business venture made in good faith that didn't work out. Please note that this is not an unconditional defence by me (I wouldn't have necessarily done the same things at the same times in the same way, and he and I have discussed that) but I know with absolute certainty that the intentions were right.
Finally on the bankruptcy, that's a personal matter for Rhys and not really any of my business at all. But I do know what it relates to, and I can say that it does not relate to the acquisition of buses at all, or indeed in any way to Rhys's business. Indeed, no seller lets a bus out of their yard without money in the bank, so that particular theory shouldn't even have got out of the starting blocks, but it's another fabrication.
I don't know much about the intentions for Ovvio at all (although I think it's a bit of a silly name - *everyone gasps as Phil fails to unconditionally defend Rhys*
). However, he tried to run a bus service, it didn't work out, so now he needs to find something else to do. So presumably creating a platform to do more transporty-type things isn't such a completely daft idea. Lots of people do it when they leave jobs. Whether it develops into anything remains to be seen, and is for Rhys and potential future clients to work out between them. Most people who need employment put themselves about as much as they can - why should Rhys be any different?
So there you have some facts in a (rather long winded) nutshell. The key point is that as so often, I have no doubt there are legitimate criticisms, but then these get embroidered and blown up into something far different and altogether more sinister, and it's that that I object to - not the fact that people are entitled to discuss his business affairs in the first place.
