A FORMER Bournemouth councillor has been accused of abandoning customers with his latest coach company.

Richard Powell has ignored requests to hand back more than £700 despite failing to send a pre-paid coach to take a group to London, it is alleged.

Children from the Stagecoach Theatre School and their parents said they were left in the lurch when a coach failed to turn up to take them to a London performance on Sunday April 2.

School Principal Peta Moffitt said she was forced to shell out a further £800 to get another coach to take them to the West End.

Now she has told the Daily Echo that Richard Powell’s Romsey-based Tempo Travel, sometimes called Tempo Coach Hire, has failed to send her a refund despite claiming to have done so on several occasions.

Richard Powell formerly ran a firm called Southern Coaches which was the subject of a barrage of complaints in 2011. Complainants included a wedding party and a school.

Peta said: “My students were all really excited. I had no option but to pay for another coach so I didn’t let them down.”

She said the extra money paid would normally be used for costumes for the school’s annual show at the Barrington Theatre in Ferndown. Now she has started a Crowdfunding initiative so the show can go on.

“I have phoned and emailed Tempo Travel several times and Richard Powell just keeps telling me he has sent the money by bank transfer or put a cheque in the post.

“This has been going on for more than a month now and I still haven’t seen a penny of my money back. “When I did some research I discovered all the other complaints about his coach businesses.”

The Daily Echo attempted to speak to Mr Powell but James Strong returned a call on behalf of Tempo Travel.

He said: “A refund has already been made to this customer. It has been dealt with by bank transfer.”

When the Daily Echo went to print, Peta had not received the money and there were no transactions pending in her bank account.

A spokesman for Bournemouth council said their records showed a complaint against Tempo Coach Hire had been investigated by the Citizen Advice Consumer Service in 2015 when it was established that no criminal offences had been committed, although he said the investigation was not carried out by officers in Bournemouth. 

Anyone who wishes to donate to the Crowdfunding appeal can do so at crowdfunder.co.uk/replace-the-show-costume-money