40 years of Bus Business – July 1986

Saturday 4th July 2026

Thanks for all the positive comments following last month’s blogpost marking the publication of the first issue of Bus Business in June 1986 . Among the reactions was the following from the newspaper’s founder and managing editor Peter Stonham: “thanks for your delightful reflections on the 40th anniversary of Bus Business. You have excellent memory, an obvious great archiving capability, and a ‘news nose’ that seems strangely familiar to me ….Thanks a lot for this recognition of a significant chapter of my life, and moment of fascinating nostalgia “

Peter went on to recall “for the historical record, Bus Business was absorbed into another bus and coach travel trade publication three years later, and Local Transport Today began as another new publication in April 1989 to provide wider news, analysis, and commentary on transport policy, planning, and management, beginning another significant new transport  publishing era, that still continues online.”

Let’s continue this new monthly nostalgic blogging series by highlighting snippets from the news from Bus Business editions in July 1986, three months out from Deregulation Day itself on 26th October. And just to show it wasn’t only ownership of bus companies changing hands as the privatisation programme also proceeded, there were changes in the manufacturing side of the industry with a front page report in issue 4 of Bus Business dated 30 July 1986…..

Leyland Bus bought by managers

Metro Cammell Weymann owners Laird Group have lost out to a management buy-out in their bid to take over lossmaking but market leading Leyland Bus. In a decision announced last Friday the government opted for the consortium led by current Leyland managing director Ian MacKinnon and backed by a number of institutions led by Bankers Trust.

Leyland Bus’s 2,000 employees have been warned the deal will be followed by large scale rationalisation and redundancies. First hit will be the ECW body plant at Lowestoft, the only remaining traditional coachbuilder in Leyland hands, and nearing completion of an order of 250 Olympian deckers for London. Job losses are also expected at both the Farrington plant in Leyland and Workington in Cumbria.

Tender success is 200 miles away

Chesterfield based NBC subsidiary, East Midland Motor Services have won a group of tenders called by Essex County Council for bus routes in Brentwood, some 200 miles away. The out-of-area bids are the first of their kind to emerge under the tendering provess.

Michael Holmes, EMMS general manager, told Bus Business this week that the operation in Brentwood reflected the company’s plan “to establish a small base in that neck of the woods” near the M11 motorway and expanding Stansted AIrport. But he refused to give more details of the company’s plans. The Brentwood services, using four buses, would partly use Bassetlaw staff who would otherwise be surplus, and partly local labour. Accommodation for staff would be provided for periods of a few days spent away.

London Buses cut loss but lose business

London Buses completed its first year as a subsidiary of London Regional Transport with an improved financial performance reducing its loss before grants to £140 million, compared with £185 million in 1984/5 according to LRT’s annual report for 1985/86. Total mileage operated by London Buses, and other operators under contracts secured by tender, was 163 million, compared with 166 million in 1984/5. Additional mileage operated by other operators with financial support from LRT brought the total network mileage to 169 million.

Bus bus passengers carried by London Buses fell from 1160 million to 1146 million and total passenger mileage dropped. By the end of the financial year, 67 per cent of London Buses’ mileage was operated by driver-only buses.

Maintenance check sweep by DTp

Department of Transport vehicle examiners have carried out a series of sample “pre-deregulation spot checks” on buses and coaches belonging to operators likely to be running bus services after deregulation, under a plan to monitor the effects of the government’s policy on maintenance standards.

The random checks, which were carried out during the first two weeks of this month, follow allegations by both politicians and some larger operators that the maintenance of some smaller independents was not up to standard and fears of further deterioration under competitive pressures.

39 minis for South Yorks

South Yorkshire PTE has been given the go-ahead to set up a commercial network of minibus routes in Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster. It will be run by the Passenger Transport Authority’s new operating company, South Yorkshire Transport Ltd. The PTE has been authorised by the PTA to spend £890,000 on 39 vehicles. Of these 21 will be used on routes in a prosperous part of Sheffield, 18 in Rotherham and five in Doncaster.

Panel to probe off-bus ticketing future in Manchester

A panel of bus, rail and taxi opeators is to determine the future management of Greater Manchester PTE’s off-bus multi-journey ticketing schemes. The PTE wants to retain the advantages – notably faster boarding, increased trip generation and rising revenue – of off-bus tickets after deregulation in October and will make the systems available to providers of commercially registered services.

It will have members from Greater Manchester Buses, Ribble, Rossendale Transport, West Yorkshire Transport, A Mayne and Son, Yelloway Motor Services, Finglands South Manchester Coachways and Citibus Tours as well as from British Rail and the Manchester Taxi Owners.

Taxi sharing revolution forecast

London’s taxi trade could be revolutionised when taxi sharing is introduced, David Mitchell, Minister for Public Transport, has claimed. Opening a depot in West London which provides taxi catering and refuelling facilities, Mitchell said that if the trade grasped the opportunity that taxi sharing would offer, it could bring about a considerable increase in the number of of passengers carried. “Shared taxis, because they will be cheaper, will attract new custom” he asserted.

Ministerial praise for ‘mushrooming’ minibuses

Minibus services are mushrooming throughout the country in response to Government’s plans to deregulate the bus industry, Public Transport Minister David Mitchell, said last week. Launching a new minibus service in Andover, to be operated by the Hampshire Bus Company, a subsidiary of the National Bus Company, Mitchell said that by the end of the year NBC subsidiary companies alone planned to operated 3,000 minibuses.

The new services were tailor made to meet unmet passenger demand. “That means giving people the service they want at a competitive price that they are very willing to pay, indeed the high frequency, convenient service minibuses can provide is tempting many car drivers on some routes to leave their cars at home and travel by minibus” claimed the Minister.

Vauxhall site joins coach station shortlist

A site at Vauxhall, near to the Victoria Line tube station at the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge, has been added to the shortlist of potential locations for a major new London coach terminal. The Vauxhall site joins the existing alternatives identified at Kings Cross, Paddington and White City in a report by consultants Steer Davies Gleave for London Regional Transport earlier this year.

They are all now being evaluated for potential development, including the opportunity for private enterprise involvement. The new terminal would be the main London base for coaches arriving from all over the country. It would largely replace Victrola coach station where the lease expires in 1990.

GM Buses shows its colours

A new fleetname, basic livery and area identities have been unveiled for the new Great Manchester Buses Limited company which will trade as GM Buses. The company will replace Greater Manchester Transport as a commercial company from 26 October. The present orange and brown bus livery has been retained to save costs. But new style logos in an italic style with diagonal stripes are being used, each identifying one of the four operating subsidiaries. Local town names to be displayed above doors will follow a common style.

Wheelchair service for airport, stations

Alder Valley North has launched its London ‘Careline’ bus service link to Heathrow airport and between London’s mainline railway stations, designed to carry people who have problems using existing transport services.

Careline links London’s Paddington, Euston, St Pancras, Kings Cross, Waterloo and Victoria stations and Victoria coach station with Heathrow. It provides an hourly service with five wheelchair lift-equipped Leyland National buses able to carry up to eight passengers in wheelchairs as well as 21 on ordinary seats. The fares for the service are £1 between stations and £5 between any central London point and the airport. The scheme was set up last year with financial assistance from the National Bus Company, though only now begun, and is to be run on a commercial basis from the Alder Valley North garage in Maidenhead, Berks.

APPOINTMENTS

(Whoever owned the Bus Business issue I have was obviously keenly interested in the jobs market as two of the advertisements for vacancies have been cut and removed … but others still in situ include…)

Depot Controller, Walthamstow c£9,700 per annum Eastern National

Eastern National have a vacancy for a Depot Controller at their Walthamstow Depot. This is a new appointment arising from Eastern National involvement in operating East London routes under contract for London Buses.Applications should be sent to Mr R W J Orbell, Traffic Manager, Eastern National in Chelmsford.

Coaching Manager (Circa £10,000 per annum) Red Bus

Red Bus, North Devon’s major bus and coach operator has a vacancy for a Coaching Manager responsible to the Operations Manager for the operational success and commercial profitability of the company’s coaches and 17 conventional buses. Applications should be sent to Mr R Montgomery, Managing Director Red Bus-North Devon in Barnstaple.

Business Development Assistants c£6.500 Cumberland Motor Services Ltd

Cumberland Motor Services Limited who operate 225 buses and coaches in Cumbria are seeking to appoint two Business Development Assistants. The successful applicants will be based at Whitehaven and be responsible to the Business Development Manager for the marketing of services provided by CMS. Please write to Mr P Couper, Business Development Manager, Cumberland Motor Services, in Whitehaven.

Watch out for “Bus Business in August 1986” next month.

Roger French

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