Arriva North West closed its depots at Macclesfield and Winsford after service on 22 April and has withdrawn all services operated from those locations.
It follows announcement of the plans in February alongside the proposed closure of Arriva Midlands’ Oswestry depot. Not all of the Cheshire routes have found new operators, but Centrebus subsidiaries D&G Bus and High Peak Buses along with First Potteries, Stagecoach Merseyside, Cheshire and South Lancashire and Warrington’s Own Buses have each entered the fray to provide replacements.
D&G has taken on a number of services in Crewe, Macclesfield and Northwich, while High Peak has extended its presence in Macclesfield. Stagecoach has entered the South Cheshire bus market for the first time in taking over route 84 from Chester.
In addition to a commercial registration, Stagecoach has secured evening and Sunday 84 journeys under local authority contract. It has won an off-peak service in Winsford under the same arrangement. Warrington’s Own Buses has gained a route in Northwich.
First has registered a service in Crewe that interworks with its existing link between the town from Hanley. It sees an unexpected return to Leighton Hospital for First, from which it withdrew from some time ago.
D&G Bus and Stagecoach go head-to-head
Stagecoach runs the 84 between Crewe and Chester every hour during the day Monday to Saturday, with additional short workings between Crewe and Nantwich to give a 30 minute frequency there. The operator had previously registered a less comprehensive timetable, with D&G in February signalling its intention to operate service 84.
While D&G subsequently removed any mention of the 84 from its website, in a surprise turn it placed a short-notice registration during week commencing 10 April for an 84X between Crewe and Nantwich, which began on 23 April. It largely competes with Stagecoach. The 84X is entirely commercial and runs every 30 minutes on Monday to Saturday daytimes, with hourly evening and Sunday provision.
In a sign that a tussle between D&G and Stagecoach on the Crewe to Nantwich axis is in the offing, both operators are running their new services free of charge for the first week. In addition, D&G has an app-only offer of 10 single trips for £15, or £10 if purchased before 1 May.
D&G’s overall PVR uplift is 12, Centrebus Group Commercial Officer Chris Almond has confirmed. It has also agreed a lease on the former Arriva depot in Macclesfield and recruited the incumbent manager there to run that operation, which is expected to commence soon after work to equip the premises is completed.
Initially local services will run from the Macclesfield depot, but Mr Almond says that scope exists to increase work there in the future subject to driver recruitment. D&G already has Cheshire bases in Crewe and Wincham, near Northwich.
TUPE differences at centre of dispute
While most former Arriva services have been taken on by others, it is understood that a dispute between the outgoing operator and D&G has arisen over drivers moving from Arriva under TUPE. The Deutsche Bahn subsidiary has not commented on the matter, while a Centrebus spokesperson would only confirm the TUPE dispute’s existence.
In a staff notice on 24 March, Arriva North West Area Operations Director Howard Farrall told Macclesfield and Winsford drivers that as D&G had at that point registered four routes that Arriva operated, “we can now confirm that TUPE does apply to some of our drivers.”
Four days later, a notice from D&G Operations Director Kevin Crawford to staff stated that “TUPE does not exist” as far as the transfer of work was concerned. It has been claimed that a Unite representative then informed members employed by Arriva at Winsford that the union was seeking full redundancy payments from the group for all staff affected.
Worries over TUPE implications are understood to have led one other potential operator to have quelled its interest in taking on any former Arriva routes. Driver shortages continued to impact Arriva’s operation until the closing day.
