 Leyland Olympian in Bedford in May 1982 | |
| Parent | National Bus Company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 24 September 1921 |
| Ceased operation | 1987 |
| Service area | Bedfordshire Buckinghamshire North Hertfordshire Huntingdonshire Northamptonshire |
| Service type | Bus operator |
United Counties Omnibus [1] was an English bus company, operating in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and parts of surrounding counties.
On 24 September 1921, the United Counties Omnibus & Road Transport Co Limited acquired the assets of the Wellingborough Motor Omnibus Co Limited, which began in May 1913. [2] The majority shareholder was Tillings. At this time, the previous livery of blue and white with red wheels was replaced by the standard Tilling livery (green with a cream band) and retained until replaced by National Bus Company green (and always with a white band) in 1972. In September 1933, the company's name was changed to its present title, United Counties Omnibus Company Limited.
In 1933, the company operated 154 buses on services throughout Northamptonshire, with some services terminating just over adjacent county boundaries, plus special services to seaside places and Whipsnade Zoo during the summer. In December 1933, services around Aylesbury were acquired from the Aylesbury Omnibus Company. [3] The company continued to expand, by buying out smaller bus and coach operators. The garage at Stony Stratford operated by a fellow Tillings company, Eastern National was transferred to United Counties. The company built new garages in several towns, a new headquarters, with major engineering workshops, in Bedford Road, Northampton, and a central covered bus station at Derngate, Northampton, thus putting it into a good shape to withstand the rigours of wartime operation.
The company entered the long-distance coach service market in 1933, when it bought Allchin & Sons of Northampton, which ran coach services to London, Bournemouth, Torquay and several Midlands cities. In 1934, it acquired a route between Oxford and London from its fellow Tillings subsidiary, Eastern Counties. In 1934, it was one of the founders of the Associated Motorways consortium, to which it transferred its Bournemouth and Torquay routes. [4]
In 1948, the Tilling Group sold its bus interests to the government. United Counties therefore became a state-owned company, under the control of the British Transport Commission. [5]
The new regime resulted in a major expansion of the company's area of operations. In 1952 Eastern National's operations in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, North Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire, with some 250 vehicles, were transferred to United Counties. [3] [6] This practically doubled the size of the company. At the same time the Oxford to London service was transferred to South Midland.
On 1 January 1963, United Counties was included in the transfer of the British Transport Commission's transport assets to the state-owned Transport Holding Company, which in turn passed to the state-owned National Bus Company on 1 January 1969.
On 14 September 1969, United Counties took over Birch Brothers giving it another express service into London besides its Nottingham – Leicester - London route. [7] On 1 January 1970, it took over Luton Corporation buses. [8] [9] There followed a period when the company was under severe pressure in coping with the maintenance of the Luton combined fleet and for a time had to forgo its duty to deal with the recovery of fellow National Bus Company subsidiaries’ coaches broken down on its allocated and very busy section of the M1 motorway.
Towards the end of the 1970s, better relationships were negotiated with county councils and the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. The company was then able to make strides in greatly improving its maintenance facilities with major work at Northampton depot, Wellingborough, Bedford, Milton Keynes (including a 100 vehicle Winterhill depot on a green field site) and Luton.
In 1980, the government embarked on a programme of deregulation and privatisation of bus services. To make them more marketable, the larger subsidiaries of the National Bus Company were split up. United Counties was split up operationally from 1 January 1986 and the new companies were privatised in 1987: [10]
Stagecoach retained the United Counties name until 1999. After Stagecoach acquired adjacent operator Cambus in 1997, an inquiry by the Office of Fair Trading ordered that Stagecoach sell the Huntingdon operations. [17] but, in 2008, Stagecoach re-acquired the Huntingdon operations, now Stagecoach in the Fens, part of Stagecoach in Cambridgeshire. The remaining part of Stagecoach United Counties became Stagecoach East in 2000, trading as Stagecoach in Northants and Stagecoach in Bedford with the legal company name remaining as United Counties Omnibus Company Limited. In 2010, the company was split, with the Bedford depot merging with Stagecoach in Cambridgeshire to form a new Stagecoach East and the Northamptonshire depots merging with Stagecoach in Warwickshire to form Stagecoach Midlands and mostly Stagecoach East Midlands. However, the trading names and the legal titles remained as before, until October 2014, when the "United Counties" registered address was changed to match the Warwickshire operations and thus "Midland Red (South) Ltd and United Counties Omnibus Company are registered as being based in Northampton.
Luton & District was bought in 1994 by British Bus, [18] which, in turn, was purchased by the Cowie Group on 1 August 1996 and rebranded as Arriva the Shires in 1998. [19] [20] [21]
Milton Keynes Citybus was acquired by Cambus (a privatised part of Eastern Counties), which was, itself, sold to Stagecoach in 1996. However, after the inquiry by the Office of Fair Trading, Stagecoach sold both the Milton Keynes and Huntingdon depot operations to Julian Peddle on 2 May 1997, who formed Premier Buses [22] and MK Metro. Peddle soon sold the Huntingdon depot operations to Blazefield and eventually sold MK Metro to Arriva in February 2006. [23] [24] An OFT inquiry allowed MK Metro to pass to Arriva who, initially, ran it as a separate operation, but have since started to brand buses as Arriva vehicles. Blazefield sold the Huntingdon & District operation to Cavalier Travel in November 2003, who sold that operation to Stagecoach Cambridge on 31 March 2008. [25]
Transdev Blazefield is a bus group, which operates local and regional bus services across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, England. Formed in August 1991, the group has been a subsidiary of French-based operator Transdev since January 2006.
Milton Keynes Central railway station serves Milton Keynes and surrounding parts of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire (England). The station is located on the West Coast Main Line about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of London. The station is served by Avanti West Coast intercity services, and by West Midlands Trains regional services.
Arriva Herts & Essex is a bus operator providing services in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, with services extending to Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Greater London. Until 2002 its operations included Colchester. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus.
Midland Red was a bus company that operated in The Midlands from 1905 until 1981. It was one of the largest English bus companies, operating over a large area between Gloucester in the south and Derbyshire in the north, and from Northampton to the Welsh border. The company also manufactured buses.
Arriva Midlands is a bus operator providing services in the East Midlands and West Midlands areas of England. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus.
Universitybus Limited, trading as Uno, is a bus operator owned and operated by the University of Hertfordshire, serving members of the general public, and also its own students and staff. The service was set up in 1992, growing out of a shuttle service previously operated for students at Wall Hall College located near Watford connecting them to the other campuses of the university and the Polytechnic (Hatfield) before that.
Stagecoach Yorkshire is an operating division of Stagecoach Group.
Yorkshire Traction was a bus operator in Yorkshire that operated from 1902 until 2005.
Crosville Motor Services was a bus operator based in the north-west of England and north and mid-Wales.
London Country Bus Services was a bus company that operated in South East England from 1970 until 1986, when it was split up and later sold as part of the bus deregulation programme.
MK Metro was a bus company operating in Milton Keynes from 1997 until 2010.
Centrebus Limited, trading as Centrebus, is a bus company based in Leicester operating services in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland.
Eastern National was a bus company operating in south-east England, primarily in Essex, from 1929 to the 1990s.
Stagecoach East is a bus operator providing local and regional services across the East of England, operating in the counties of Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The company is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group and is headquartered and registered in Cambridge.
The privatisation of London bus services was the process of the transfer of operation of buses in London from public bodies to private companies.
London Country North East was a bus operator in South East England and London. It was formed from the split of London Country Bus Services in 1986 and operated a fleet of around 350 buses from six garages, with its headquarters located in Hatfield.
Julian Peddle is an entrepreneur who has worked in the bus industry since the early 1980s, having owned or part-owned numerous bus companies. He spent 11 years as co-owner of Stevensons of Uttoxeter between 1983 and 1994, having previously been its traffic manager. During the late 1990s and early 2000s he ran Status Group, a group of small bus companies spread across England which included BakerBus, Choice Travel and MK Metro. He was a major shareholder in Tellings-Golden Miller and Centrebus Holdings before their sale to Arriva.
Buses in Milton Keynes are run by a mixture of operators on a network of urban and rural routes in and around the Milton Keynes urban area. These services have a varied history involving five different companies. At the foundation of the 'New City' in 1967 and for some years afterwards, Milton Keynes was served by a rural bus service between and to the pre-existing towns. Apart from a small-scale experimental service, urban buses arrived on the scene with deregulation in 1986. Since April 2010 the core local services have been provided by Arriva Shires & Essex. Long-distance coach services also serve MK, often via the Milton Keynes Coachway located near junction 14 of the M1 motorway.
Transport in Bedford provides links between the town and other parts of England. Road access to and from the town is provided by the A6 and A421 roads; the former connects the town with Kettering to the north-west, and Luton to the south, whilst the latter connects the town with Milton Keynes and the M1 to the west, and the A1 to the east via a bypass, with both being around 10 miles (16 km) away. Other roads that serve or skirt the town include the A422, which runs westwards into Milton Keynes, and the A428, which runs between Coventry and Cambridge.
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