Competition returns to Preston

Tuesday 16th June 2026

This is becoming a bit of a habit. Two Tuesdays ago I reported on new competitive developments in Southend-on-Sea between First Bus and Arriva; last Tuesday it was about Arriva and Stagecoach’s new battle in Stevenage and today I’m catching up with further competitive developments, this time in Preston where a knockabout between Preston Bus and Stagecoach has reactivated.

Which is nothing new, of course. There’s history between the two operators. 20 years ago there was a right royal battle when Stagecoach launched competitive like-for-like ‘citi’ branded routes on lucrative corridors against the former municipally owned Preston Bus which had been subject to a management buy-out in 1993.

The competition was so intense it presuaded Preston Bus the best course of action was to sell up to Stagecoach but as many predicted at the time, not surprisingly, the competition authorities intervened forcing Stagecoach to sell its newly acquired company which it eventually did to Rotala with hostilities soon ceasing as Stagecoach withdrew most of its local routes in the city.

Fast forward to more recent times and it’s Preston Bus initiating the latest provocation from the end of March with an extension of its route 23 from the Royal Preston Hospital in the north of the city to become a cross city route with an extension every 20 minutes to Bamber Bridge in the south of the city.

The provocation comes by virtue of the route south of the city along the main Chorley Road being the preserve of Stagecoach’s busy inter-urban route 125 running between Bolton and Preston every 10 minutes with coincidentally a 20 minute extension of every other journey beyond the city’s bus station north to the Royal Preston Hospital.

That extension was introduced some years ago, pre Covid, and is an example of how from time to time Stagecoach has provided cross city links through extending its longer distance routes thus not giving up on the idea of adding bits of Preston to its bus network.

Stagecoach has reacted back to the 23 extension by adding more journeys to the hospital on the 125 and, crucially, also introducing a new extension northwards to its route 111 so it now runs roughly every 12 minutes from Leyland to Preston with all journeys continuing north from the bus station to the residential area of Tanterton via the University and Fulwood with the first part of the route also served by the aforementioned route 23 on its way to the hospital (as shown in the map below).

This 111 extension mainly competes with Preston Bus operated route 35 running every 10 minutes between Tanterton and the bus station via a slightly different route to the newly extended 111.

Tanterton residents now have almost double the number of buses and Stagecoach has managed to impact two of what must be Preston Bus’s most lucrative routes by duplicating parts of both the 23 and 35.

There’s another factor in all this and that’s the Preston Bus decision to withdraw from the £3 fare cap in January stating the Government’s reimbursement arrangements were “no longer financially sustainable”. It followed this up in April by withdrawing from Lancashire County Council’s evening and Sunday £1 fare cap again siting insufficient reimbursement.

Stagecoach is still participating in both schemes making its competitive routes appear cheaper although Preston Bus has reacted to the latest situation with reductions on its day tickets and new ‘South Ribble’ tickets in a ‘Summer Sale’ on the 23…

… and on the 35, from Sunday, introduced the ‘Big Summer Fare Cut’ with a day ticket reduced to £5 instead of £6.40 and a £4.20 day return (rather than £3.50 singles each way) between Tanterton and the city centre together with reductions in bundles of five day tickets and 28 day tickets.

Matt Rawlinson, managing director of Preston Bus launched the cheaper fares saying “we know that affordable fares make a real difference to our customers. By cutting prices across some of our most popular tickets, we want to make it easier for people to get out and about this summer — whether that’s for work, shopping, leisure or visiting friends and family. If you haven’t used the bus for a while, now is a great time to give it another try.”

It’s a sure sign the competitive situation is having an impact.

I had a ride on all four routes in contention (23/125 and 35/111) last Tuesday to see how the competitive situation was going and certainly in the off-peak early afternoon when I travelled it was only the long established route 125 carrying decent numbers with the other routes carrying twos and threes and in a few cases case six to eight passengers.

Buses depart on both competitive corridors from adjacent stands in Preston’s famous bus station so there’s a clear choice for passengers often with both buses standing next to each other waiting for custom.

Towards Tanterton those passengers travelling to the southern section of route not covered by the newly extended 111 were obviously still catching their normal bus on route 35 but those going further were equally divided in which bus to catch.

Towards Bamber Bridge the 125 seemed to be more popular than the 23. It was just me and another passenger boarding the 23 when I travelled with no other takers all the way to Bamber Bridge.

City bound journeys on both routes saw everyone board the first bus that arrived at the bus stop.

It was good to see timetable displays in the bus station and at bus stops along the routes that I saw had been updated.

It’s another competitive spat that’ll be interesting to see how it develops not least as neither Rotala or Stagecoach are renowned for backing down once they’ve established a course of action, but history also shows competition in Preston does ebb and flow.

I’m grateful to blog reader David from Preston who kindly gave me some of his recollections of previous spats which, to conclude this blogpost, readers may find interesting as background to the current situation….

“During the 2007 bus war, Stagecoach had my favourite service pattern ever in the area. They ran a competing service 23 every 10 minutes, plus a service which ran almost identically to Preston Bus’s then service 22, which did the same route but terminated at St Clare’s. Stagecoach’s version continued along Sharoe Green Lane as a 19 instead, forming a circular service much like Preston Bus had done further in town for the first 70 or so years of its history. There was then also a Stagecoach 19A service which ran as the Preston Bus 19, IE along the Deepdale Road route, and then round the Broadwood Drive estate, also every 10 minutes. 

In 2009 we lost all of those Stagecoach services, and reverted to having a Preston Bus 19 which sometimes went through the estate, and a 22 and a 23. Eventually, we lost the 22, so we now have half the service that we used to have on that route. 

Meanwhile service 7 ended and at that point Stagecoach started a service 4C, which ran every 20 minutes, on college days only, via the former 7 route, Garstang Road, Watling Street Road, Sharoe Green Lane, up to the college. I’m guessing this would have been around 2013 or 2014 or something. Again, that service did not last terribly long. 

Stagecoach then seemed to take a step back for a while, reducing frequencies on a number of their smaller routes. I think it must have been just before the pandemic when they first started running some 125 services up to the hospital.

The only other odd thing Stagecoach did was on 31 August last year, where they swapped the routes of services 61 and 68 between Ashton and Preston, so that the 68 ran every 20 minutes via Lane Ends instead of via Tulketh Road, thus slightly increasing competition with the 35, and the half hourly 61 ran via Tulketh Road, giving them a less frequent service. I think that arrangement does work better than the former as Lane Ends does have a few shops still.”

Thanks David for that which just goes to show competition presses on in Preston.

Roger French

Summer blogging timetable: 06:00 TThSSu