Our Mystery Contributor compares the Cornwall of today with that only a few years ago and finds a very different place. Agree or disagree with his perhaps more controversial previous post here

Cornwall in the 21st Century

A couple of years back all the industry talk was about the ‘Big Five’ PLCs selling off the less profitable parts of their empires, with First Devon & Cornwall always quoted as being up for sale.

Now, in 2008, the big groups are buying what might be expected to be marginal operations (e.g. Cavalier bought by Stagecoach and Truronian by First), and the market looks very different.

A recent holiday in Cornwall gave the opportunity to view bus operation there for the first time in several years, and what a change. Gone are the tatty life-expired VRs that still provided several of First’s core routes just a few years back and gone, too, are vast areas of what was First territory. Visit Newquay, and there’s a new bus station, with a Western Greyhound travel shop and green & white buses coming and going regularly. First, meanwhile, appear perhaps three times an hour—on a holiday camp route, a direct Truro & Falmouth route, and an indirect Truro via Perranporth route. By various routes, Western Greyhound has five departures per hour to Truro alone!

Move down to Penzance, and First still dominates the bus station. However, even here Western Greyhound is very noticeable following last year’s take-over of local operator Sunset Coaches. Exeter, Plymouth, Bude, Truro, St Austell, Penzance—in all of these places the Varios and occasional Olympians of Western Greyhound present the image of a highly professional operator going about its business.

In Falmouth and Camborne, First still dominates, more so since the purchase earlier this year of Truronian. The two networks have yet to be integrated, and the differences are noticeable. The First operation is now very smart, with a high percentage of low floor Dennis Darts assisted by mainly tidy Volvo and Leyland Olympians, while the Truronian operation looks down-at-heel and in need of smartening up (I won’t say investment, for there are new buses, but even these look unkempt).

So overall, Cornwall now has an impressive level of bus service. One cannot help but feel that when First rather lost the plot they lost a lot of ground—and that Western Greyhound has taken full advantage of the opportunities they were handed. In buying Truronian, First has reacquired mainly deep rural routes given up many years ago, rather than routes with potential, squandered during periods of weaker management in more recent times.