2012 Ford Transit 17 Seat Minibus - in the workshop at Hexham
Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham has been an ongoing fleet customer of ours since 2022. The most recent pickup, in April 2026, was a white Ford Transit 17 seat minibus that came with a long jobs list, failed MOT, dead battery, fuel running back, seized brakes, and welding needed on the bodywork. Paul, the teacher overseeing the deal from the school side, walked us round the van and we took it away the same day. This is how we handle school and business fleet disposals across Northumberland.
Our first pickup from QEHS
Our connection with Queen Elizabeth High School started with the rowing club. In 2022 the Hexham Courant ran a feature on Pauline and Geoff Higgins, the couple who had led the QEHS Rowing Club for more than thirty years. Pauline got in touch shortly after, the club had a minibus that was no longer needed at the level it had been, and we met at the school to do a deal. That was our first pickup from QEHS.
A bit of context on the club itself, because it is genuinely unusual. QEHS Rowing is one of only twenty three state school rowing clubs in the country, and runs the largest junior programme in the North of England. Pauline grew the membership from around thirty to close to a hundred rowers over her time running it, with a high of a hundred and twenty six at one point. Between them Pauline and Geoff hold a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Award and the inaugural Lifetime Achievement at the Sport Tynedale West Northumberland Sports Awards. The club travels crews across the North East every weekend, which is a lot of seat miles on a minibus.
A continued connection with the school
The first deal could have been a one off. What actually happened is that Pauline and Geoff's daughter contacted us shortly afterwards to sell her Honda Jazz, and over the months that followed the school started calling us directly whenever a vehicle was no longer earning its keep. That has carried on. Minibuses used for regatta runs and training trips cover a lot of hard miles, and after ten or fifteen years of early morning starts there comes a point where a bus is worth more gone than parked.
The April 2026 pickup
The latest vehicle we collected from QEHS is a 2012 white Ford Transit 17 seat minibus, reg NX62 TXT. Paul, the teacher handling the handover from the school side, walked us around it. It had just failed its MOT on several points. The brakes had seized on, the battery was flat, fuel was running back out of the system, the bodywork needed welding before it would go through another test, and it would not start under its own power.
That combination is how a lot of school and charity minibuses finish their service life. Everyone drove it when it was running, nobody wanted to be the name on the paperwork once it stopped. We did what we always do. Walked around it, opened the bonnet, looked at what it would take to move the vehicle without a flatbed, agreed a figure with the school, and got to work. The first four jump starts did nothing. On the fifth it coughed into life, injectors knocking, fuel running dry and then running back, and the engine management dropped the van straight into limp mode. Our diagnostic tool got the control modules reset, we fitted a replacement battery, and once everything had settled the bus drove off the school car park under its own power. The longer jobs, the fuel system, the welding, and the rest of the MOT advisory sheet, those get booked in back at the workshop.
The first photo on this page is the van sitting at QEHS next to the school's newer black Transit, just before we left with it. The others are from the workshop yard the next morning, including one with Connor, our self employed handyman, on top of the roof giving it the first proper wash down it has had in a long time. Sixty odd trips to the river a season and a lot of Northumbrian weather leaves a roof that nobody ever sees in a state.
Fleet disposals for schools and businesses
For a school business manager or a fleet operator, the problem with an end of life minibus is rarely the bus itself. It is the time cost of disposal. Get a quote, arrange a collection, chase the paperwork, log the sale against the fixed asset register, sort the V5. We handle all of that in one visit, we can move non runners where needed, and we have dealt with schools, charities and small operators across Northumberland.
If you have a fleet vehicle that needs to go, the easiest next step is the online valuation wizard or a call to 07707 440 222. We can usually be on site within the week.
