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Post by VWH1414 on Jan 15, 2020 14:50:17 GMT
Heritage Coaches of Sussex (The last remnants of Countryliner really) apparently closed down in December - with most work passing to Worthing Coaches.
Jim Stones Coaches is also closing down on the 18th April - Sadly with all drivers made redundant unless a buyer for the business is found. Apparently they are closing due to uncertainty over bus franchising and LEZ plans, with Jim and his wife now retiring.
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Post by vjaska on Jan 15, 2020 15:15:18 GMT
Jim Stones Coaches is also closing down on the 18th April - Sadly with all drivers made redundant unless a buyer for the business is found. Apparently they are closing due to uncertainty over bus franchising and LEZ plans, with Jim and his wife now retiring. Is that the one based in Catford?
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Post by VWH1414 on Jan 15, 2020 15:18:10 GMT
Jim Stones Coaches is also closing down on the 18th April - Sadly with all drivers made redundant unless a buyer for the business is found. Apparently they are closing due to uncertainty over bus franchising and LEZ plans, with Jim and his wife now retiring. Is that the one based in Catford? No this is one based in Leigh near Manchester - They currently operate a fleet of 9 8.9m E200s on local TGfM tendered routes 584, 588, 589, 590, 593, 595, 596 & 682.
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Post by vjaska on Jan 15, 2020 15:20:33 GMT
Is that the one based in Catford? No this is one based in Leigh near Manchester - They currently operate a fleet of 9 8.9m E200s on local TGfM tendered routes 584, 588, 589, 590, 593, 595, 596 & 682. Ahh I remember now the minute you said Leigh lol - used to have a load of MPD's before the Enviro 200's came along.
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 15, 2020 17:08:43 GMT
Unless its appeal is successful, Target Travel of Plympton, Plymouth will have its Operating Licence revoked from 17th February 2020. It had already lost all its Plymouth City Council contracted bus routes to Stagecoach South West in 2018, and most of its Devon County Council contracts went to other operators last year - the last remaining, for routes 49/94 (a single contract operated with one vehicle) has already been re-awarded to Tally Ho! of Kingsbridge from 17th February.
There are a number of closed school routes, special matchday buses operated for home games at Plymouth Argyle and some Tesco superstore routes for which new operators still need to be found. A limited operation may be allowed until the end of March if necessary to allow school transport to continue. Plymouth Argyle Supporters Club and the team themselves will also need to find an alternative provider for away-match transport.
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lg
Cleaner
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Post by lg on Jan 15, 2020 20:44:50 GMT
Heritage Coaches of Sussex (The last remnants of Countryliner really) apparently closed down in December - with most work passing to Worthing Coaches. Jim Stones Coaches is also closing down on the 18th April - Sadly with all drivers made redundant unless a buyer for the business is found. Apparently they are closing due to uncertainty over bus franchising and LEZ plans, with Jim and his wife now retiring. Heritage Coaches had no links to Countryliner other than they took on work from Countryliner when it collapsed. When the work was sold on to Compass Travel what was left was pretty much as Heritage Coaches was before. I work opposite the Worthing Coaches depot and since returning after Christmas I've noticed various vehicles from within the Lucketts empire, I assume that they are loans to cover the additional commitments taken on
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 16, 2020 2:30:41 GMT
Jim Stones Coaches is also closing down on the 18th April - Sadly with all drivers made redundant unless a buyer for the business is found. Apparently they are closing due to uncertainty over bus franchising and LEZ plans, with Jim and his wife now retiring. That is sad to hear. Whilst I must admit I’ve not personally sampled their services, their fleet always looks smart and you tend to only hear positive things about them.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2020 2:50:59 GMT
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Post by heaton30 on Jan 18, 2020 19:24:22 GMT
[/quote] Heritage Coaches had no links to Countryliner other than they took on work from Countryliner when it collapsed. When the work was sold on to Compass Travel what was left was pretty much as Heritage Coaches was before. [/quote]
Tedious link, but Heritage Coaches started up The Sussex Bus when Countryliner got into trouble, Compass travel took over some of the work when The Sussex Bus closed down. I thought Heritage Travel went at the same time. I didn’t realise that part of the business was still running....
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Post by VWH1414 on Jan 19, 2020 19:52:03 GMT
Halton Transport is rumoured to be closing after they finish today - I've seen a lot of people on other forums say this is not surprising though, with them struggling to buy young vehicles and a patronage on a lot of their routes low. They have also been called to a PI.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2020 2:49:17 GMT
Halton Transport is rumoured to be closing after they finish today - I've seen a lot of people on other forums say this is not surprising though, with them struggling to buy young vehicles and a patronage on a lot of their routes low. They have also been called to a PI. They are still trading, however an emergency council meeting has been called for tomorrow (Wednesday) which could be a decider. Arriva have decided to hold short notice driver recruitment days for Wednesday and Saturday.... This has now been confirmed - Carol Peters has closed due to “various financial issues”. theisleofthanetnews.com/2020/01/19/carol-peters-travel-apologises-to-customers/
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2020 2:06:22 GMT
Further to the above, Halton Transport will cease trading after close of service on Friday (24th Jan). Reports suggest Warrington’s Own Buses are taking over the Merseytravel school contracts and supposedly offering drivers £200 incentive to join them, with Arriva allegedly offering £300 (based on comments on another forum). It’s unclear if anyone plans to take on any of their main network. Arriva cover quite a lot of the Runcorn area already.
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 22, 2020 9:20:30 GMT
Further to the above, Halton Transport will cease trading after close of service on Friday (24th Jan). Reports suggest Warrington’s Own Buses are taking over the Merseytravel school contracts and supposedly offering drivers £200 incentive to join them, with Arriva allegedly offering £300 (based on comments on another forum). It’s unclear if anyone plans to take on any of their main network. Arriva cover quite a lot of the Runcorn area already. A by-product of this, is that it will remove the last instance in England whereby the services of two different municipally-owned companies meet at the same location (Halton's route 62 operates into Warrington). For a while Thamesdown Transport met with a few Kennections routes in West Berkshire (Lambourn and Hungerford) that are operated by municipally-owned Reading Transport Ltd. but Thamesdown Transport has since been bought out by Go-Ahead. After Friday, the only locations in the UK where the services of two different municipally-owned operators will meet will be in Wales - the route 30 between Newport and Cardiff is also the only remaining bus service in the UK to be jointly operated by two municipally-owned companies, an arrangement that was once very common in many parts of the UK. The number of municipally-owned bus companies is now down to seven - Lothian Buses (Transport for Edinburgh Ltd.), Blackpool Transport, Warrington's Own Buses, Nottingham City Transport, Ipswich Buses, Reading Buses (Reading Transport Ltd.), Newport Bus & Cardiff Bus. Lothian is jointly owned by four councils (although City of Edinburgh has by far the largest shareholding of 91%) whilst Transdev holds 18% of the shares in Nottingham City Transport, this being a hangover from the days when Transdev and NCT were both part of the consortium that built and operated the Nottingham Express Transit tram line.
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Post by VWH1414 on Jan 22, 2020 22:28:33 GMT
Jim Stones buses have now officially announced they are closing on 21st April, apparently its not down to financial issues, more down to ill health of the owner and uncertainty over operations in Manchester (Potential franchising etc.), they are also trying to secure jobs for all of their drivers elsewhere. Sad to see another independent disappear.
Also looks like Jim Stones fleet have all been registered to standard registration plates now: BUS51T - Now MM13OCH BU52LEE - Now MM14DWU M1BUS - Now MM14DWX BUS1T - Now MM14DXK B1BUS - Now MH15LHR B1JYM - Now MT66MTE H1JYM - Now MH17EGJ BUS1S - Now MH17EGK
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 23, 2020 19:05:08 GMT
Further to the above, Halton Transport will cease trading after close of service on Friday (24th Jan). Reports suggest Warrington’s Own Buses are taking over the Merseytravel school contracts and supposedly offering drivers £200 incentive to join them, with Arriva allegedly offering £300 (based on comments on another forum). It’s unclear if anyone plans to take on any of their main network. Arriva cover quite a lot of the Runcorn area already. Halton Council held a closed meeting about the future of the undertaking (which is municipally-owned) on Wednesday night but the outcome of the meeting has not yet been made public. Meanwhile a number of services were cancelled today (Thursday) after drivers failed to turn up for work, including school services in Merseyside which left a number of students stranded. Some schools are reported to be in discussion with other operators to provide alternative services should Halton Transport cease operation after tomorrow, as is still widely expected.
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