Blazefield Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Blazefield Group is one of the main bus groups in England. Owner of several bus companies around the Yorkshire and Lancashire regions, since 2006 it has been part of the international transport company Transdev.
Its subsidiary companies are:
[edit] History
Giles Fearnley and Stuart Wilde established Blazefield in 1991 when they purchaed 70% of Alan Stephenson's AJS Group.
At its inception there were nine operating subsidiaries: Harrogate & District, Harrogate Independent Travel, Keighley & District, Northern Rose, Rover Coaches, Sovereign Bus & Coach, Sovereign Buses (Harrow), Welwyn Hatfield Line and Yorkshire Coastliner.
AJS had owned West Yorkshire Road Car and London Country North East. LCNE was broken into two, Sovereign Bus & Coach and County Bus & Coach, only Sovereign became part of Blazefield. While West Yorkshire was broken into its six depots, Leeds, Bradford, York, Malton, Harrogate and Keighley. Leeds, Bradford and York passed to the Rider Group, which owned Yorkshire Rider (now First Leeds), while the remaining three depots became Yorkshire Coastliner, Harrogate & District and Keighley & District respectively.
Expansion soon followed with the purchase of 14-vehicle Cambridge Coach Services from AJS in November 1991 and Watford-based Lucketts during the same month. Ingfield of Settle was added in April 1992 and was merged with Keighley-based Northern Rose to form Ingfield-Northern Rose.
In 1993 Harrogate Independent Travel - which had been set up as an independent by Harrogate & District drivers to challenge their employer - was absorbed into Harrogate & District. In 1994 Blazefield made one of its most significant acqusitions was Borehamwood Travel Services (BTS}, with 43 vehicles, 22 of which were AEC Routemasters for London route 13 (Golders Green - Aldwych). It was renamed Sovereign London.
By this time the Group owned 380 vehicles.
In 1994 Ingfield-Northern Rose bought Whaites Coaches of Settle. At the same time Sovereign was locked in battle with Universitybus. Blazefield was also supposedly behind Petlen Travel, trading as Noddy Bus, using old Sovereign buses.
In 1996 Harrogate & District grew again when it acquired Cowie United Ripon operations. In 1998 Huntigdon & Districtwas created with the operations of Premier Buses, owned by Julian Peddle, but was sold to Cavalier of Sutton Bridge in 2004. Cambridge Coach Services was sold to National Express-owned Airlinks in 1999.
On Sunday 15 April 2001, Stagecoach Ribble's East Lancashire operations were acquired. Two new subsidiaries were formed, Burnley & Pendle at Burnley and Pendle depots and Lancashire United at Blackburn, Bolton and Clitheroe. Bolton was quickly sold on to independent Blue Bus of Horwich. At both subidiaries great improvement has been made, such as most of the Stagecoach buses have been replaced.
During November 2002 Sovereign London was sold to The Transdev Group, and it became London Sovereign. In early 2005 the Competition Commission gave the thumbs-up for Blazefield's deal to sell what was left of Sovereign to Arriva Shires & Essex. The St Albans operation had already been sold to Centrebus of Leicester, with whom it became InMotion St Albans.
On 4 January 2006 the Group was sold to Transdev, taking their British bus fleet to just over 1,200.
