WORTON-based company, Bodmans Coaches, got a smack on the wrist when representatives appeared before Traffic Commissioner Philip Brown in Bristol yesterday.

Bodmans, which operates 30 bus contracts for Wiltshire County Council, both school runs and scheduled services, had been brought before the public inquiry following a visit by Vehicle Inspectors in October.

The inspectors had filed an unsatisfactory maintenance report on what they had found at the company's garage in High Street, Worton.

A spokesman for the Department of Transport in Bristol said: "The inspectors didn't find anything heinous or anything that would be life-threatening. They thought that the company was not, generally speaking, reaching the standards expected of it both in terms of paperwork and the standard of maintenance.

"There is no suggestion that the company was in danger of having its licence revoked. The commissioner just felt it must do better."

The punishment meted out to Bodmans by Mr Brown was unusual by comparison with magistrates' courts, but not for traffic commissioners' inquiries.

For a period of seven consecutive days between now and the end of April, the company must cut the number of authorised vehicles it operates from 36 to 30.

The spokesman said: "This will obviously cause the company some financial expense as they may have to come to some arrangement with another operator. It is a penalty to reprimand them and try to get them to do better in future."

Neither John nor Graham Bodman, the brothers who run the company, were available for comment.

The fact that the Bodmans take the safety of their passengers seriously was borne out when it personally campaigned when its bus drivers were not allowed to drive into the Wellington Drive estate in Devizes, which meant pupils from Bishops Cannings School had to cross a busy road to get home.