Western Greyhound deal safeguards 133 jobs
Following hard on the heels of the announcement on Sunday that
Western Greyhound has sold its Liskeard outstation operation to Go-Ahead subsidiary,
Plymouth CityBus , Western Greyhound has announced the sale of the rest of the business in a deal that safeguards 133 jobs.
Michael Bishop , an entrepreneur from within the bus and coach industry, has purchased the entire share capital of Western Greyhound from MD Mark Howarth, his wife Mari and Robin Orbell.
Michael said: “I am so pleased that we were able to work with Mark and his team to purchase Western Greyhound. The company has a very exciting future ahead of it and will continue to be a well-respected local independent operator. We have identified areas of the business that would benefit from further development and investment to strengthen the commercial future of the company.”
Western Greyhound, which currently carries 2.7m passengers a year in Cornwall and Devon, will continue with 65 buses and 133 employees from its freehold Summercourt depot, together with a small leased outstation at Wadebridge.
Michael is appointed Managing Director, and joined by Adam Smith as General Manager. Mark Howarth will carry on as a consultant to the business for a period of time due to his extensive experience and knowledge.
Western Greyhound was publicly put up for sale a couple of months ago.
Mark Howarth said: “It is always sad to take the decision to sell a company that one has started and built up over a period of 16 years. However, we are all now in our sixties and it is time for new management and ideas to be introduced into the business. As a Board, we were all keen to ensure that we sold Western Greyhound as a going concern and that the jobs of our hard-working and loyal staff could be protected. The decision to split the sale was because many staff wanted to see Western Greyhound return to a smaller, leaner and fitter operation.”
Western Greyhound was established in 1998 from scratch and quickly built up a reputation for innovation and quality, increasing frequencies, turning loss-making rural routes round through regular clock-face timetables and all-day, seven day a week quality operations on core routes. It was a regular year-on-year industry award winner and grew at its peak to over 120 vehicles. It encountered difficulties in recent years with massive cuts in Concessionary Fares reimbursement, a horrific arson attack destroying 35 buses at its Summercourt base, followed by a further fire destroying three buses in Liskeard, and flooding and bad weather during last winter which severely disputed services.
More recently Western Greyhound has suffered from aggressive competition, including for staff which has seen many leave the business, but has carried on despite all these difficulties.
Mark said: “These have been very difficult times and we apologise for any passengers who have been let down. We now move on and know that many passengers continue to support us as the small local operator and I thank everyone for that.”
He added: “On behalf of the Board, we are delighted with both these deals which will enable Western Greyhound to carry forward into the next phase of its development. I would like to publicly thank our incredibly loyal staff who have worked so hard under often extremely difficult circumstances, and I would like to thank the public and, indeed the rest of industry, for their loyal support over the past 16 years.”
Last week Western Greyhound confirmed that Plymouth Citybus had acquired its services in the South East Cornwall area, safeguarding 31 bus driving jobs and continuing to run the Western Greyhound timetables that are currently in place from Monday 8th December.
Financial terms for both deals have not been disclosed.
The challenge ahead
When you look at the two distinct operations that have been sold this week, you have to say that Plymouth Citybus have the easiest job. They have purchased a fully compliant low floor fleet to run the services and don't face too much competition at the moment. True the 576 competes with First's 76 between Plymouth and Launceston but that's about it. The new owners face a resurgent First operation that has already introduced new services against Western Greyhound and has more already lined up for the new year. The new owners seem to be fairly successful at the moment but have had difficulties with some of its operations in the past. Country Liner Sussex Ltd went into administration at very short notice in October 2012. Adam Smith, the new General Manager has also had his brush with the law only being spared because jobs at newly purchased Black Velvet Travel depended on him. I don't know that much about Buses Excetera but it certainly appears to be a well run operation and has a distinctive style. Hopefully that style will also flow across to the new business and the new owners can start to rebuild the business. They also have a fair amount of fleet replacement to contend with.
I wish the new owners well and I hope that they can bring Western Greyhound back to its former glory when it really was an industry leader. It wasn't that long ago that most of us wondered if First would bother with Cornwall at all as WG gradually took over routes which were being abandoned by First at an alarming rate. That is clearly no longer the case. The Cornish bus scene is going to be very interesting over the coming year indeed.
Buses Excetera S25ETC seen in Kingston on route 27 back in February 2014
Black Velvet F309MYJ back in 2011. Another well presented and respected fleet which fell into hard times and has been rescued by Bishop & Smith.
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