First Manchester

[iMarkeh]

RE: First Manchester

(06/06/2019 11:40)Winston Wrote:  As I understand it, Bolton is the biggest loss making within First Manchester, my comments regarding Vantage contributing heavily towards that loss date back to late Jan this year, so things / negotiations between interested parties / First & TfGM could have moved forward since then.

I can't see First simply walking away for their remaining Manchester depots, they will be incurring big enough asset write-downs as seen on the QS depot sale to Go-Ahead as it is and would then incur the costs of shutting down the ops / staff redundancy etc.

Could it not work selling the routes individually (With enough buses to cover the PVR) and then transferring drivers under TUPE. I think a big thing with these sales is the depot costs. If anyone wanted to buy Bolton, you are then taking a lot like the maintenance teams and a lot of routes which you may not want. If Bolton is doing so badly financially, the routes will be what ops want.

Operators don't want to be tied down with another depot if they can accommodate things in their existing depots and all the depot costs like the management, allocators etc. I think it might be for the best for First to simply sell individual routes as then ops staff won't be needed and maintenance will be covered. People would have to be made redundant but with operators taking on more work, they will likely find another job in the near future.

All companies have different levels of viability so any potential buyer for the whole depot would rely on the company making big changes. Individual routes means everyone can take what is viable for them.