ANGRY Joe Clarke has slammed the Government for closing the local office of the Traffic Commissioner.

The Atherton councillor, who is chairman of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, said he was "outraged by this short-sighted action."

He added: "Quality and safety standards have, on a number of recent occasions, been shown to be severely lacking.

"There is no way this move will do anything to improve matters. This leaves the largest metropolitan bus network outside London without any direct regulator."

The campaigning councillor has repeatedly asked the Secretary of State to appoint a Traffic Commissioner - the position being vacant since December.

Cllr Clarke continued: "If vehicle inspections are to be carried out from a base in Leeds does this mean there will be fewer inspections in Greater Manchester?

"That would be nothing short of an invitation for cowboy bus operators to cut costs and to sacrifice passenger safety for profit.

"It is already the case that people often do not get satisfactory responses to complaints about bus drivers and bus companies from the Traffic Commissioner.

"I can only see this getting worse.

"We have said for a long time the North West is getting a raw deal. The situation is now beyond belief."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.