Wessex to close operations in Bristol

[whole diary]

[chuffed]

Wessex have announced that they are closing their Bristol depot and axing their services. 200 job losses with about 60 transferring to Stagecoach who will take over some routes in North Bristol and South Gloucestershire. I would like to see them start south of the River Avon as well, to shake up the monopoly of First. First are so unimaginative in that they think everyone wants to run in and out of Bristol all day. How about a circular service linking Portishead Clevedon Weston Nailsea and Bristol instead of these current little scrappy routes like the 660 that goes from nowhere to nowhere not very quickly. It was much more useful as a circular route.

Mods: please can this entered as a new topic under 'Buses'

[grahame]

Wessex have announced that they are closing their Bristol depot and axing their services. ...

Their Bath services are going to, from 2nd September. on the Bath services, First are taking over / providing a couple of alternatives to the stuff that's commercial and I believe that are at least some retendering processes going on.

[grahame]

Mods: please can this entered as a new topic under 'Buses'

Done

[JayMac]

A couple of evenings ago I was looking for existing topics about Wessex Bus on the forum so I could post details of the, at that time, cuts to Wessex services that had been announced. I was planning to add my opinion that they wouldn't be long for this world.

I got sidetracked and forgot to post. I'm not at all surprised that they've decided to pull the plug. Yet another provincial operator ceases trading. Although in this case the parent company is still solvent. It does highlight the difficulties faced in a sector that being failed by government policy. Small operators fold. Medium and large operators cut and retrench to areas where only commercial services are sustainable. Social need has gone out the window thanks to national and local political decisions.

Some lovely modern bus shelters, with live running information, on routes served only by Wessex will now stand useless. A testament to the stupidity of the local authority.

The sunny uplands post brexit will of course fix all this. Not.

Staff announcement attached.

[martyjon]

A couple of evenings ago I was looking for existing topics about Wessex Bus on the forum so I could post details of the, at that time, cuts to Wessex services that had been announced. I was planning to add my opinion that they wouldn't be long for this world.

I got sidetracked and forgot to post. I'm not at all surprised that they've decided to pull the plug. Yet another provincial operator ceases trading. Although in this case the parent company is still solvent. It does highlight the difficulties faced in a sector that being failed by government policy. Small operators fold. Medium and large operators cut and retrench to areas where only commercial services are sustainable. Social need has gone out the window thanks to national and local political decisions.

Some lovely modern bus shelters, with live running information, on routes served only by Wessex will now stand useless. A testament to the stupidity of the local authority.

The sunny uplands post brexit will of course fix all this. Not.

Staff announcement attached.

Where's the staff announcement ?

[grahame]

Where's the staff announcement ?

It's an attachment to the post, which means you don't see it on things like "Recent Posts". It is also not visible to guests.    Log in (if you're not logged in), visit the thread itself, and it's offered on the base of BNM's post.

[Timmer]

Very sad but no surprise. First rules in this part of the world, very few survive. How Faresaver keep going I don’t know. Long may they continue.

[TonyK]

To be honest, I wonder how anyone can survive in transport these days. First Group posted losses which equal the GDP of some smaller countries. There are obvious matters in high finance that make this sustainable in the long term - if you owe the bank £5000, you have a problem. If you owe them £5,000,000, the bank has a problem.
I think I only ever rode on a Wessex bus once, and experience very like that of riding on a First bus. We spend very little public money on buses these days. For all the talk of deregulation, the industry is still highly regulated and expensive to do properly.

[WelshBluebird]

Some lovely modern bus shelters, with live running information, on routes served only by Wessex will now stand useless. A testament to the stupidity of the local authority.

Sounds like most of the route will be taken up by either the new route of the U2 or First's new 20 service, so thankfully there shouldn't be many new shelters left unused.