First Manchester

[Mayneway]

RE: First Manchester

(24/11/2018 16:29)Brickmill Wrote:  Looking back, I suspect they bought it partly because "they could". ie. Stagecoach certainly couldn't and I'm guessing Arriva either couldn't financially or were "warned off"by the CMA/OFT. The latter doesn't make much sense though as even then, they had a declining prescence in South Manchester, but it seemed strange that (allegedly) it was Arriva NOT Stagecoach that officially objected to the CMA/OFT about First buying Finglands. First for their part would say, "well, if we hadn't bought it, it would have closed down making 90 (iirc) people redundant and handing a monopoly to Stagecoach anyway". The only other logical buyer would have been Bullocks, but they may have felt it was too much to take on and were happy with the security of running only contracted or otherwise supported services.

But in theory nobody had to buy it. Look what happened with eyms trying to sell their Whittle operation. A buyer couldn't be found and Peter Ship ended up closing the operation down. I suspect had First not shown such an interest in Finglands it would have gone the same way, First could have registered the Finglands services and run them from Queens road saving cash and resources.