The announcement a fortnight ago that First would be selling its fleet of 52 vehicles in Orpington to Go Ahead’s Metrobus came very much as a surprise. Arriva isn’t afraid to sell when the moment is ripe and Stagecoach certainly isn’t – witness Darlington and before that, the world. But First, well, it has held tightly to its acquisitions and, till Orpington, sold not a bus to any of its rivals.
There’s no doubt that First’s decision was sensible. The depot apparently had seen significant retrenchment since the days Peter Hendy’s Centrewest operations, including losses of TfL contracts to Metrobus. It is geographically distant from First’s other commitments.
If First can do it once, should it do it again?
Of the 18 subsidiaries, First Devon & Cornwall is probably the weakest. Even in the so-called ‘feather bed’ of the old pre-deregulation days, Western National was never National Bus Company’s star performer, this largely owing to the swathe of unpopulated rural areas it served, especially in Cornwall. There were a series of incremental withdrawals, from the 1970s that have never really stopped.
Upon privatisation in 1987, it passed with Badgerline’s help to Plympton Coachlines and subsequently to First. To say the least, the early years of deregulation were rocky, with an alarming turnover of senior staff. By the turn of the new century, operational issues had become especially problematic and by 2002 driver recruitment and retention had gone critical. This resulted in one of two recent public inquiries.
2003 saw a significant network redesign and cut backs, something First’s management at the time admitted went pear-shaped. This resulted in further significant consolidation in 2004 but the hoped-for financial stability failed to materialise. TAS reported FDC as the worst performing UK operator in 2004/05. Losses mounted during 2005. There have subsequently been further revisions in Cornwall and north Devon, especially in 2006, which not only saw smaller Cornish operators again gaining ground but subsequently opened the door for Stagecoach to compete against First in its highly profitable core routes centres on Barnstable.
In March 2006, when asked, First’s UK bus MD was adamant that FDC would remain FDC before a maintenance public inquiry the following month. And the losses mounted during 2006.
But the appointment of former Yellow Buses man Marc Reddy as MD has been good for First. The lean years appear over. Investment, free travel and improvements in patronage levels especially in Plymouth see FDC in a healthier state, all to the good of the travelling public and staff employed. The expected recovery we felt was overdue has now arrived. First and Reddy have turned FDC around but beyond the Plymouth city boundary it must still be fragile. Or so history would have us believe.
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
A Surprise Sell
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3 comments:
As usual an interesting and thoughful article on FDC. I dont though feel it has quite noted how much different things feel down here at the moment. Competition with Stagecoach seems to have eased a lot with Stagecoach making significant cutbacks on many of its services all over Devon. The end of the year sees several Citybus routes switch to FDC under tender. These tendered routes have seen several changes between the two companies over the years but its mostly been one way traffic from First to Citybus for ages now. The fact that FDC feel able to take on more tendered work in Plymouth suggests they are more confident at the moment than they have been for some time. They are only just now withdrawing their 'seasonal' extra runs on the X80 this month.
Interestingly the new Stagecoach X45 Plymouth to Paignton is one of the few major routes which hasnt been cutback at all so competition is still on!
Graham
I would have thought that First Eastern Counties might be on the for sale side. Certainly it looks to be needing investment, particularly in contrast with the other half of Eastern Counties, Stagecoach Cambridge. The many independents are doing a much better job than FEC - Sanders, Konectbus, Norfolk Green, Anglian, Beestons, Ipswich Buses and so on. Having said that there has been some investment in new buses, for the Park & Ride in Norwich, some Norwich routes got new B7TL/Geminis this year, but in general most 'new' buses are other places cast offs.
My view is that any future sales by First will be in a similar vein - isolated outposts which have little solid commercial work as a foundation for building on. It is probably a surprise to many that First has hung on in North Devon when Stagecoach undermined it's base by bolting commercial work onto the tender successes there; Kings Lynn is another depot which I imagine has a very weak base; only the Hunstantons and the X94 seem to be commercial now that Norfolk Green compete on the town and run virtually all the marginal stuff. There must be other similar 'outposts' with dubious profit elsewhere in the empire?
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