Halton Transport

[gilesbus1]

RE: Halton Transport

(17/03/2019 10:27)RSTurbo50 Wrote:  Would Halton necessarily be sold? Is there a possibility that other operators such as Arriva, Stagecoach, Warringtons Own Buses would simply take over existing routes or register new services that serve Widnes?

As stated the fleet isn’t in the best of shapes and this I would imagine may put potential interests off. With Arriva pretty dominant, Stagecoach running the X5 and maybe looking to add to this in the Widnes area and Warringtons Own Buses making slow movements at serving the Halton area, would this necessarily mean that Halton need another operator?

I would think it would be as the council will have the need to make the money a sale would bring, a big loss on the operations by a no sale scenario would likely put up council tax for the citizens of Halton, of course other operators like Warrington's Own Buses, Arriva and Stagecoach may try and run them off the road but to do so might not be seen as popular seeing what happened in Darlington 27 or so years ago.

Stagecoach have never made it a secret that they are interested in buying Halton, should it come on the market, even a few years ago they were making noises about it and it may fit well into there Glenvale operations and expand their network. Stagecoach lets not forget can replace the fleet very quickly with buses freed up elsewhere in its empire and with a sprinkling of new vehicles as well diverted from other orders, such as at Wigan about 7 years or so ago.

Halton's fleet is highly standardised but to some operators that would be a good point as it means the need not to store a lot of parts, simplifying the stores, and plus the successor model is still made, and likely to be around for a long time and ideal for Halton, given that the fleet is built around its predecessor models.

Of course if Halton was to liquidise the assets the only thing of any great value would be the depot site, although what could be fitted on to it is limited as it is rather small in any case. Of course the vehicles might make market value based on condition, but old style Dart SLF's are not what operators want to buy, they want ADL Enviro200's. The Scania's would be another challenge as well as most operators have found the Volvo B7RLE to be a far better model with a greater life span hence why few Scania saloons have been bought new by operators for several years, also the move to lightweight chassis also means the Scania's might struggle to sell in a batch of that size.