{"id":205098,"date":"2025-06-22T12:29:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T12:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205098\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T12:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T12:29:19","slug":"essex-bus-company-donates-two-former-vaccination-units-to-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205098\/","title":{"rendered":"Essex bus company donates two former vaccination units to Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Henry Godfrey-Evans<\/p>\n<p>BBC News, Essex<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750245909_304_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/e2be6540-4d01-11f0-9d3e-6149fb67e70c.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Henry Godfrey-Evans\/BBC Bill Hiron in a high-visibility vest with his hand on the wing mirror of his bus\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj\"\/>Henry Godfrey-Evans\/BBC<\/p>\n<p>Bill Hiron says his company is proud to be able to help in the humanitarian effort<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">An Essex bus company has donated two disused mobile vaccination buses to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">During the Covid-19 pandemic, the single-decker buses were converted to administer thousands of vaccinations to vulnerable people in remote or isolated communities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Now, they are being repurposed to support humanitarian efforts in the war-torn country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Bill Hiron, of Rochford-based independent bus company Stephensons, said: &#8220;The NHS decided they had no further use for them, so we asked the question &#8216;would these buses be any use to Ukraine?&#8217; and the answer was very much yes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Hide from drones&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The company bought back the vehicles and one has already arrived in Ukraine. A second will join a convoy of aid on Sunday, loaded with supplies and aid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Graham Hayden, 62, is organising the transport and driving the bus 1,600 miles to Ukraine himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">He is representing a not-for-profit livery company called the Worshipful Company of Carmen and expressed his gratitude to Stephensons.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750245909_304_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/7a063570-4d13-11f0-bb09-c5e41640a8b4.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Henry Godfrey-Evans\/BBC A man with a light green shirt in the driver's seat of a bus with his hands on the wheel\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj\"\/>Henry Godfrey-Evans\/BBC<\/p>\n<p>Graham Hayden will be taking the second bus on the 1,600-mile trip to Ukraine<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to send them something&#8230; [when] you&#8217;ve got drones chasing you and you turn the key and it doesn&#8217;t start. So we&#8217;re after buses, minibuses, pickup trucks, lorries,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;They want small minibuses because they can hide from the drones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;It will be used for mobile doctor surgeries, mobile hospital-type arrangements, so it will actually be used in the configuration it&#8217;s in now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The trip will cost more than \u00a31,200 just for transport including tolls and the ferry, and Mr Hayden urged people to donate to his organisation&#8217;s appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Henry Godfrey-Evans BBC News, Essex Henry Godfrey-Evans\/BBC Bill Hiron says his company is proud to be able to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-205098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114727024629761532","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}