London Country South West

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London Country South West was a former bus operator which was originated from London Country Bus Services.

Preparation for privatisation in the early 1980s saw London Country Bus Services subdivided into London Country North East, North West, South East and South West divisions. All four companies moved into London central area services as tendered operations.

South West was sold in February 1988 to the Drawlane Group, set up by the management of Shamrock & Rambler's management team. The London Country South West name and livery were replaced by the London & Country name and adopted a modern two-tone green and red livery.

In 1986 London & Country went into LRT route tendering in a significant way under Drawlane, winning several contracts using secondhand Atlanteans from Greater Glasgow, GM Buses and Busways, where bus deregulation was making the major fleets dispose of large numbers of surplus vehicles. In 1989 London & Country was faced with having to update its double-decker fleet if it were to win further contracts and have hope of renewing its existing ones.

The first new buses, a batch of thirteen Volvo Citybuses, had large (for the time) 88-seater East Lancs bodies. They went into service in September 1989 at Addlestone Garage, displacing ageing secondhand Leyland Atlanteans. Their routes were lost at re-tender in 1990, but the buses found a new home on freshly-acquired route 85 (Putney Bridge - Kingston). One found an early home at Reigate, often working on service 727, before going to join its class-mates at Addlestone later in the year.

In December 1992 Drawlane renamed itself British Bus. Expansion was clearly on the agenda. More London tendered routes were taken over and London & Country acquired the Guildford area operations of Alder Valley when that concern was split up. These operations were rebranded Guildford & West Surrey.

Depots at the time were Cranleigh, Crawley, Croydon, Dunton Green, Guildford, Hounslow, Leatherhead, Merstham, Slyford, Walworth, Warnham and Woking.

In June 1996 British Bus was sold to the Cowie Group, which rebranded itself Arriva in November 1997. Under Cowie, Croydon, Dunton Green and Walworth were separated off into a new Londonlinks company. Under Arriva, they were transferred back. Then, Arriva transferred them into the new Arriva London South company.