GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

[knutstransport]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(22/07/2016 00:11)Olympian Wrote:  having spoken to a few arriva Winsford drivers there seems to be some anger that they didnt pickup any gha work around crewe/Nantwich, the only work given to arriva by Cheshire east council has been in north east Cheshire (Macclesfield and Wythenshaw depots)
Some have suggested that the council may be biased because Winsford depot is in Cheshire West and giving the work to D&G keeps jobs in the councils area, other think that the company itself isn't intrested in Winsford depot anymore so didn't bother to go for the work.
Anyone know more ? (copey perhaps ?)

I imagine D&G, High Peak and Howards would have offered to do the contracted work for a lower subsidy than Arriva so Arriva were only left with the routes which other operators didn't have the resource to cover. Many of the routes D&G have just taken on are former D&G routes which D&G lost as a result of GHA undercutting them when the contracts went up for renewal. I also imagine D&G were more interested in the routes serving Nantwich, Congleton and Crewe than the routes serving Macclesfield, Wilmslow, Knutsford and Altrincham.

[knutstransport]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(20/07/2016 22:21)Salopbus Wrote:  I can categorically confirm that no funding was provided towards the Enviro 200's on the 88 service. They were fully funded by GHA. The livery was designed in collaboration with Cheshire East Council

I was only saying what a local councillor had said. He does have proof that a 6 figure sum from Waters was made available to the winner of the 88 contract and also claims the buses costed over £100,000 each to buy. However, what he said about those Enviros only being made available because of the Waters might be because GHA wouldn't have been able to afford them if only Cheshire East/TSS had provided funding for the 88 route. He actually said he had no idea who actually owned the buses or whether anyone other than GHA could claim they part owned the buses.

[Salopbus]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(22/07/2016 08:24)knutstransport Wrote:  I was only saying what a local councillor had said. He does have proof that a 6 figure sum from Waters was made available to the winner of the 88 contract and also claims the buses costed over £100,000 each to buy. However, what he said about those Enviros only being made available because of the Waters might be because GHA wouldn't have been able to afford them if only Cheshire East/TSS had provided funding for the 88 route. He actually said he had no idea who actually owned the buses or whether anyone other than GHA could claim they part owned the buses.

That would be very interesting as there was no agreement between Cheshire East and GHA so they must have made a separate arrangement with Waters, the Councillor may be getting mixed up with the six figure sum paid in subsidy for operating the service which would certainly have been shared with Cllrs in a Cabinet paper.

[knutstransport]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(22/07/2016 12:17)Salopbus Wrote:  That would be very interesting as there was no agreement between Cheshire East and GHA so they must have made a separate arrangement with Waters, the Councillor may be getting mixed up with the six figure sum paid in subsidy for operating the service which would certainly have been shared with Cllrs in a Cabinet paper.

The Councillor in question is not a Conservative so isn't one of the ones involved in the Lyme Green fiasco and isn't Mike Jones who had his own fiasco either.

I was wondering whether the ITT for the contract included an option for funding improvements to make public transport more attractive (as a result of the Waters funding) and GHA chose new buses opposed to there being a requirement for new buses. The additional buses being routed via Waters and via the railway station in Wilmslow alone suggests Waters had an influence in the enhanced service. While GHA's publicity for the GHA Gold service focused on connections with Metrolink at Altrincham for onward journeys to Manchester, which is only really relevant for a small part of the route.

There certainly wasn't the same type of agreement that used to be place on the 27 route where there were council owned Wright Cadets and AstraZeneca provided funding for the route.

[Salopbus]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(22/07/2016 16:13)knutstransport Wrote:  The Councillor in question is not a Conservative so isn't one of the ones involved in the Lyme Green fiasco and isn't Mike Jones who had his own fiasco either.

I was wondering whether the ITT for the contract included an option for funding improvements to make public transport more attractive (as a result of the Waters funding) and GHA chose new buses opposed to there being a requirement for new buses. The additional buses being routed via Waters and via the railway station in Wilmslow alone suggests Waters had an influence in the enhanced service. While GHA's publicity for the GHA Gold service focused on connections with Metrolink at Altrincham for onward journeys to Manchester, which is only really relevant for a small part of the route.

There certainly wasn't the same type of agreement that used to be place on the 27 route where there were council owned Wright Cadets and AstraZeneca provided funding for the route.

The proposal for increasing the level of service was entirely GHA's with the assumption that increasing the frequency would generate traffic and cover the cost of additional vehicles, this certainly looked to be likely before operational issues took a hold. As I mentioned in my first post I am certain that no funding was provided via Cheshire East Council for vehicles

[knutstransport]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)
A quote from someone at Cheshire East, when GHA were awarded the new 88 contract, was that the intention was for the frequency to be enhanced if passenger growth continued. If Cheshire East didn't specify that in the ITT then GHA must have included it in their winning bid

There were conflicting stories about funding back in 2014. Stephen Byrce claimed GHA funded the wifi while the Ts and Cs you had to accept to use it stated the wifi was provided by Cheshire East and had the same registration system as on the onelink buses which were operated by D&G.

[Danfilm007]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)
I doubt there's much anger in terms of Arriva not picking up much recently, they've trimmed and trimmed their network down in the area, so not gaining some work mustn't be too much of an irritation IMO.

[T42 PVM (Moderator)]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)
Well Stagecoach now have the 1,2,X2. Thats Something that would of fitted perfectly with Arrivas Network, It does feel that Arriva dont really care up them ways tbh

[Salopbus]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(22/07/2016 18:25)knutstransport Wrote:  A quote from someone at Cheshire East, when GHA were awarded the new 88 contract, was that the intention was for the frequency to be enhanced if passenger growth continued. If Cheshire East didn't specify that in the ITT then GHA must have included it in their winning bid

There were conflicting stories about funding back in 2014. Stephen Byrce claimed GHA funded the wifi while the Ts and Cs you had to accept to use it stated the wifi was provided by Cheshire East and had the same registration system as on the onelink buses which were operated by D&G.

You are correct GHA offered the enhancement in their winning bid to be introduced when the new vehicles were available. The WiFi equipment was fully funded by GHA but was operating on Cheshire East's system.

[knutstransport]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

(22/07/2016 21:08)Salopbus Wrote:  You are correct GHA offered the enhancement in their winning bid to be introduced when the new vehicles were available. The WiFi equipment was fully funded by GHA but was operating on Cheshire East's system.

Which then means technically GHA should have been paying a licence fee to Cheshire East for using their system otherwise they aren't fully funding it. However, as Cheshire East were paying GHA to run the service it all gets a bit complicated when trying to claim who has funded what unless you a claim such as the following was made "The 88 service is a GHA Gold service. The service is operated by GHA Coaches and receives funding from Cheshire East council."