First Hampshire & Dorset 'in dire financial straits'

[TheGrandWazoo]

Just for the record it was the MV02xxx B7L which were used for the Commonwealth Games in 2002. Harris is right that the B7RLE were ex Manchester commercial operations.

Indeed - 66350-6 were amongst those B7Ls that were delivered for CT Games transport in 2002. Most others went to Northampton including 66339 and the ones in Bristol.

69210-44 were delivered in 2006 but then cascaded in 2008 to update fleets in Weymouth, Cornwall and Port Talbot/Swansea IIRC (in a similar way to Stagecoach with their e400s). Some of the Kernow ones were branded for the 471 Bolton to Rochdale and one or two Kernow ones did a spell on Ugobus. They've been worked hard.

One thing is that there's been nothing official to really advise the public of the change. Assume it's a soft transfer and that they'll be more apparent changes in the New Year. Not least that the First Yeovil Twitter feed is still active.

TBH, this mention of Yeovil getting cast offs. Which routes really justify new fleet? There's precious few in TN or BR, and it wasn't as if they were getting loads of new fleet in Cawlett days. Wasn't it just a pair of Merc 811s? After all, it's not as if the area has ever been a

I'd hope that the profile and performance will improve; after all, the BoS fleet is seeing the first knockings of concerted improvement with the e300s and the three relatively modern e200s. I'm sure that once the transition has calmed down and they've taken stock (if they haven't already) then they'll look to make changes. Obviously, there's the speculation about the 77 moving to Yeovil etc and removing the interworking which might not be a bad idea.

For those of us of a certain age, we all remember the fairly healthy allocation that Yeovil depot had, being whittled away as more and more services were lost either through normal tender attrition, the Dorset tender package, reallocation of all the 54 to Taunton, and allowing various independents (plus Stagecoach) to gain more work. That can never be fully recovered but I'm sure that Alex and MMH and the rest of the FSW team will be looking to improve things as they have with Kernow and BoS having removed their two main competitors in that time.

 

[dgl]

Been announced on BBC news that the dispute in Dorset is over/deal agreed and it's back to work as usual.

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[THarris123]

Been announced on BBC news that the dispute in Dorset is over/deal agreed and it's back to work as usual.

Sent from my Lumia 625 using Tapatalk

At last. Brilliant.

 

[Robertj21a]

Terms of settlement are not being disclosed.

 

[dgl]

At last. Brilliant.

Yes, it's been a while with supposedly no end in sight. But finally something has happened and I hope for the best.

 

[[.n]]

Terms of settlement are not being disclosed.

I did find out what they were, but can't recall exactly the permutations, but basically some backdated to last year, and increases every year for the next 2 years. And of course they've moved the Yeovil part of First to another group company, to prevent the comparisons with different pay within the same company!
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£2.50 singles and £3.50 day tickets would be very welcome in many parts of the UK !. Perhaps they need to put the fares up.

Again - there may well be Weymouth fares at this level, but in my part of the bus routes, my single fare is £4.50 which I noted has increased by over 50% in the past few years, together with a reduction in service levels.

 

[dgl]

Again - there may well be Weymouth fares at this level, but in my part of the bus routes, my single fare is £4.50 which I noted has increased by over 50% in the past few years, together with a reduction in service levels.

I suppose if you are on the Jurassic routes then they will have gone up more than the Weymouth fares as they were supported by Devon/Dorset county councils whereas now I believe they are commercially operated, so not really their fault that a non non (or very slightly) subsidised route which operates on not the most profitable route has the fares increased.

 

[randyrippley]

I have to say I find all this talk of old cast-off stock amusing when you remember how many new buses were drafted into Weymouth for the Olympic games.........where did they all end up?

 

[AnonymousUser1]

Not much point in GoAhead rushing in to buy if they feel that First is going to collapse in a heap anyway.

that is the game to play isn't it ...

given it's likely a fire sale scenario anyway ( owt decent vehicles wise will be spirited away before / at close of play ) ...

plus if drivers / fitters / office / supervisory grades end up being made redundant it's money out of the original owners coffers and there's No TUPE stuff that there would be if you purchased the depot/ fleet / staff contracts as a going concern ...

given it seems that TaCoS is part ofthe problem at the current time, beign able to recruit the staff on the 'open market' is a way to side step the issue as you can recruit them all onto the same contract as the buyer's current staff or onto the contract that the seller wanted to put in but couldn't.