Avon Buses

Avon Buses

Plaxton Pointer bodied Dennis Dart in New Ferry in February 2009
Parent Larry Smith
Founded August 1981
Headquarters Prenton
Service area Merseyside
Cheshire
Service type Bus services
Hubs West Kirby
Birkenhead
Arrowe Park Hospital
Heswall
Chester
Crosby
Clatterbridge Hospital
Fleet 41 (February 2017)

Avon Buses[1] is a bus operator based in Prenton providing services in Merseyside and Cheshire.

History

Plaxton Pointer bodied Dennis Dart in Birkenhead in September 2009
Wright Crusader bodied Volvo B6LE in Birkenhead in June 2009
Marshall Capital bodied Dennis Dart SLF in Bebington in August 2007

Avon Minis, as the company was originally known, was founded in August 1981 by present proprietor Larry Smith. By 1995 it had six buses and ran mostly school contracts plus one local route. The newest buses were two Leyland Titans.[2]

Since then the company has expanded with services starting in Crosby, Fazakerley and their former outstation in Bootle. The business was renamed Avon Buses in 2004/05.

Avon Buses took over former Arriva North West routes 421 and 422, renumbering them to 22 and 22A. Avon then decided to renumber service 22A to 24 so it would not confuse its passengers with Helms Coaches service 23. They also took over five other groups of routes at the same time. After the Helms Coaches service was withdrawn, Avon Buses decided not to up the frequency of routes 22 and 24 but add an additional Sunday 23 service from Heswall to Chester Bus Exchange, which was eventually withdrawn in April 2011.

In October 2013 Avon took on eight routes from Impera Bus & Coach[3] after Impera ceased to trade.[4][5]

29 June 2014 saw the end of two commercial Avon routes, (Route 40/40A Saughall Massie - Mill Park) & (Route 80 Woodside - Arrowe Park Hospital) It also saw the end of Merseytravel routes 197 & 213

On 6 July 2014 Avon took over Cumfybus' daytime 135,235 service between Bootle and Aintree.

On 10 August 2014 Avon took over Merseytravel services 144/145 from Peoplesbus running between Litherland and Bootle. 2 morning and 2 afternoon services start and finish at Arrowe Park Hospital, in Wirral, which are numbered 143

In September 2014 The 22 was withdrawn and replaced by Stagecoach X22 running between Heswall bus station and Chester Bus Exchange but due it routing the service was very bad as it avoided Williston.

From 8 December 2014, some of the longer Avon routes were split up, which interwork with each other. Routes 86/87 were cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby was renumbered 88. Routes 77/77A were also cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby became the 82/82A. This had also happened before in August 2012 when routes 12 and 12A were split to become 12 and 93: the route remained unchanged with through journeys still possible, but they were technically now different services.

On 1st September 2015 A new timetable came out on many routes and the 22 returned go via it former which ran until September 2012.

On 5 September 2016 many of Avon's services were re-routed, cut or new destinations added. The 22 was extended from West Kirby to Moreton Cross and most of it rerouted to serve... Newton, Greasby, Arrowe Park Hospital and Pensby. The 83 became a 3 buses a day service in each direction between Prenton and Liverpool.

Fleet

As of February 2017 the fleet consisted of 41 buses.[6]

The bulk of the fleet consists of Dennis Dart SLF and Alexander Dennis Enviro 200 Darts chassis with East Lancs Spryte, Caetano Nimbus, MCV Evolution and Plaxton Pointer 2 bodywork.

The initial Avon Buses livery was a dark blue with cream. In 1993 the livery became predominantly cream with blue stripes lined in gold. In 1998 the livery evolved again into cream with a blue skirt and black around the windows. A new livery was introduced 2016 with the arrival of five short Enviro200 buses. This livery is white with a blue skirt with the blue raising to the roof towards the rear, broken with a cream sash.

There have been very few exceptions to the Avon livery although, during the 1990s, some coaches operated in a red livery branded 'Avon Executive' and a Leyland National Greenway carried a Merseytravel livery of yellow, white and black as a dedicated bus to a contract between Heswall and West Kirby.

2017 has seen Avon expand operations in the Liverpool area but since June a driver and vehicle shortage has led to many service cancellations and the company at late June 2017 was in. a state of crisis with Merseytravel tendered and comrmercial services not running. However the crisis appeared to have been resolved by the end of June with all scheduled services running, but during July services have been regularly cancelled again. August has seen the company's fortunes improve.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Companies House extract company no 3929294 Avon Buses Limited
  2. ↑ Brown, Stewart J (November 1995). Buses in Britain 2: The Mid Nineties. Capital Transport. p. 87. ISBN 1-85414-181-3.
  3. ↑ Companies House extract company no 7449882 Impera Bus & Coach Limited
  4. ↑ Impera Bus & Coach Cease Trading Archived 21 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine. The North West Bus Blog 3 October 2013
  5. ↑ Impera Buses have stopped running their bus services Archived 24 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Merseytravel 13 October 2013
  6. ↑ Avon Buses Fleetlist Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Merseyside Dennis Dart

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