London Country South East

London Country South East was a bus operator in South-East England. It was formed in 1986 from the break-up of London Country Bus Services, and was known as Kentish Bus for most of its existence. Its operations are now part of Arriva Southern Counties.

Creation and early history

In the run-up to deregulation, London Country Bus Services was broken up into four smaller companies with in September 1986. London Country South East was the smallest of the four, with just 169 buses and garages at Dartford, Northfleet and Tunbridge Wells, with some London contracts operated from London Buses' garage at Catford. Bill Gunning, the former Traffic Manager of London Country, became the new company's Managing Director. The company was renamed Kentish Bus in April 1987, and a new livery of maroon and cream replaced the former London Country green.^[1]

1988-1994: Proudmutual Ownership

As part of the privatisation of National Bus Company, Kentish Bus was sold by the government in March 1988.^[2] Proudmutual, a holding company formed by the management buyout of Northumbria Motor Services on that company's privatisation, bought Kentish Bus.^[3] Bill Gunning was replaced as Managing Director by Brian Hirst, who had previously worked for Alder Valley.^[1] The company then expanded its London operations significantly with a series of contract wins and acquisitions. In 1989 route 22A and route 55 were won from London Forest; 43 new Leyland Olympians were bought to operate the routes.^[1] Outside of London, a small Northfleet-based operator called Mini Metro was taken over at the beginning of 1990.^[1] In February 1992 the company paid £300,000 for the seven contracted routes and 50 vehicles of Boro'line.^[1] These were initially operated from the former Boro'line garage at Crayford, but were later transferred to the former London Forest garage at Ash Grove along with routes 22A and 55. In early 1993 Kentish Bus gained work in the Lewisham area and ordered 65 new buses to cover the workings; this took the fleet size to 352, more than double its size in 1986.^[1] One of the routes gained was route 19, for which the company leased AEC Routemasters from London Regional Transport; they were the first operator other than a former London Buses subsidiary to win a contract for a Routemaster-operated route, and were permitted to use their own maroon and cream livery in place of London red.^[4] By August 1993 they had become the largest operator of London contracts except for London Buses.^[4] Further expansion came in November 1993, when two London contracts and six minor commercial routes, along with 23 buses, were taken over from Transcity Buses.^[1][5]

1994-1997: British Bus and Cowie

In July 1994, the fast-expanding British Bus group bought Proudmutual. British Bus already owned neighbouring operator London & Country (successor to London Country South West), and in January 1995 London & Country's contracted operations at Croydon, Walworth and Dunton Green depots were split into a new company, Londonlinks, which was run from Kentish Bus' Northfleet base.^[6] When Maidstone & District were also acquired by British Bus in April 1995, the three companies were put under the control of a single holding company, Invictaway, which was based at M&D's head office in Maidstone.^[6] A new livery of green and yellow was also introduced to Kentish Bus.^[6] On August 1, 1996, the company had another new owner: Cowie Group bought out British Bus in a deal which brought three of the four segments of London Country back into common ownership.^[2]

Rebranding and subsequent history

In 1997 Cowie was rebranded as Arriva. The Invictaway company became Arriva Southern Counties, which was subdivided into five smaller subsidiaries. The Dartford and Northfleet garages of Kentish Bus formed the new Arriva Kent Thameside operation, while Tunbridge Wells joined most of Maidstone & District's operation as Arriva Kent & Sussex.

References