Stagecoach and the Competition Commission have reached a compromise that obliges Stagecoach to sell Preston Bus, but keep one of the routes in the original divestment package. The high-frequency 11 between the city centre and Gamull Lane via Ribbleton Lane, one of the first launched in competition with then employee-owned Preston Bus in 2007, [...]

A second new heritage bus operator has set up in Torbay in as many months. Brixham-based Greenway Ferry & Pleasure Cruises inaugurated Torquay-Greenway House service AC1 on 26 June using a 1947 Barnaby-bodied Leyland Tiger PS1/1 halfcab single-decker.

The Stagecoach/Scottish Citylink joint venture hopes to win business users from trains by launching a premium fare luxury coach service on two inter-city routes. Citylink Gold offers faster journeys in leather-seated coaches with free WiFi access and at-seat catering on the Glasgow-Aviemore-Inverness and Glasgow-Aberdeen routes.

The Australian-owned Macquarie group is in talks to sell the East London Bus Group, Stagecoach’s former operation in London, though no announcement is likely for months.

The Westminster and Edinburgh governments are inviting bids for another £18.4million worth of Green Bus Fund money to subsidise the purchase of around 180 more hybrid, all-electric and other low-carbon buses.

Kick-Start route development grants in England are among the first victims of the new government’s spending cuts, which at local level are also threatening Sunday services around the country. Besides withdrawing £5million worth of Kick-Start funding announced by Labour’s transport minister, Sadiq Khan, on 25 March, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government is reappraising 62 major transport [...]

First Aberdeen is working with Aberdeen City Council, Grampian Police and the University of Aberdeen to turn one of its 17 services into a ‘showcase’ route within a year. The announcement on 29 April came 23 days after Scottish traffic commissioner Joan Aitken branded First’s bus operations in its home city as ‘dire’.

Former Stagecoach South West operations manager Richard McAllister revived an open-top double-deck service in Paignton on 1 May, using buses painted in traditional Devon General cream and maroon.

After an absence of 40 years, double-deck bus operation returned to Jersey on 25 April when Connex, the Veolia subsidiary franchised to provide all the Channel Island’s scheduled public bus services, began a two-week trial of an Alexander Dennis Enviro400 on the island’s busiest route 15 between St Helier and the airport at St Peter.

Wrightbus has appointed Mistral Group, the Cheshire-based sales and rental company, to sell the new midibus it plans to launch before its annual July factory shutdown. The midibus will challenge the market dominance of the Optare Solo, and is undergoing tests at the Millbrook circuit in Bedfordshire.