THE?director of Carmel Coaches will fight the decision to strip the firm of its operating licence. Traffic commissioner for the West of England Sarah Bell has made an order to revoke Carmel Coaches of its licence and those of two of its directors, Anthony and Michael Hazell, for 18 months from the end of July. The order comes following an investigation into the firm's practices. Tony Hazell has vowed to appeal the decision, citing the company's long term safety record. The firm runs school buses to Okehampton College, and Hatherleigh, South Tawton and Halwill primary schools. Devon County Council has moved to reassure parents that it will do whatever it takes to ensure that these school buses, which will run until the end of July, will be safe for children to use. A Devon County Council spokesman said: 'We are appointing our own independent vehicle engineers to ensure that the Carmel coaches used on our school routes meet all the statutory safety requirements. We will follow this up by carrying out unannounced spot checks on coaches at schools. 'The safety of our students is paramount and we are fully aware that parents will want to be reassured about their children's safety following last night's decision by the traffic commissioner. 'We're liaising with her so we can be clear why she chose not to issue an immediate revocation but suspended it until July 31. We are also studying in detail all the concerns she had about management and fault reporting. 'We are actively pursuing other transport companies to provide alternative arrangements as soon as possible but we are just entering the busiest time of year for coach companies which do not have much spare capacity so we cannot replace all the services immediately. 'That's why we have appointed our own independent vehicle examiners to check safety. It's vital that our students' education is not disrupted — particularly as many of them still have to complete their GCSEs and A- levels — and we want to reassure families and schools that the transport their children are using is safe.' The traffic commissioner had conducted the investigation into the coach firm prior to a fatal crash involving one of the company's coaches in Looe. The crash on Tuesday, May 13 killed two and left another four people seriously injured. All evidence for the commissioner's report was gathered before the accident, and the decision did not reflect the incident. Issues raised in the commissioner's investigation report included serious defects not being fixed and poor record keeping of safety issues over a number of years.