Avon Buses was a bus operator based in
Prenton
Prenton is a suburb of Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. Administratively, it is also a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the County Borough of Birkenhead, within ...
providing services in
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...
and
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, England.
History
![Avon Dart Marshall Capital](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Avon_Dart_Marshall_Capital.jpg)
Avon Minis, as the company was originally known, was founded in August 1981 by Larry Smith. By 1995 it had six buses and ran mostly school contracts plus one local route. The newest buses were two
Leyland Titans.
The company expanded with services starting in
Crosby Crosby may refer to:
Places
;Canada
*Crosby, Ontario, part of the township of Rideau Lakes, Ontario
*Crosby, Ontario, a neighbourhood in the city of Markham, Ontario
;England
*Crosby, Cumbria
*Crosby, Lincolnshire
*Crosby, Merseyside
** Crosby (U ...
,
Fazakerley
Fazakerley is a suburb of north Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is part of the Liverpool Walton Parliamentary constituency. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 16,786.
Description
Fazakerley is in north Liverpool; neighbouring dist ...
and a former outstation in
Bootle
Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Bootle (UK Parliament constituency), Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449.
Histo ...
. The business was renamed Avon Buses in 2004/05.
Avon Buses took over former
routes 421 and 422, renumbering them to 22 and 22A. Avon then decided to renumber service 22A to 24 so it would not be confused with Helms Coaches service 23. They also took over five other groups of routes at the same time. After the Helms Coaches service was withdrawn, Avon Buses decided not to raise the frequency of routes 22 and 24 but add an additional Sunday 23 service from
Heswall
Heswall is a town on the Wirral, Merseyside, England. At the 2001 Census, the population was 16,012, including the nearby villages of Barnston and Gayton.
Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 it was part of the administr ...
to Chester Bus Exchange, which was withdrawn in April 2011.
In October 2013 Avon took on eight routes from Impera Bus & Coach after Impera ceased to trade.
29 June 2014 saw the end of two commercial Avon routes, (Route 40/40A Saughall Massie - Mill Park) & (Route 80 Woodside - Arrowe Park Hospital)
It also saw the end of Merseytravel routes 197 & 213
On 6 July 2014 Avon took over Cumfybus's daytime 135 and 235 service between Bootle and Aintree.
On 10 August 2014 Avon took over Merseytravel services 144/145 from Peoplesbus running between Litherland and Bootle. Two morning and two afternoon services started and finished at Arrowe Park Hospital, numbered 143.
In September 2014 the 22 was withdrawn and replaced by Stagecoach X22 running between
Heswall bus station and Chester, avoiding
Williston.
From 8 December 2014, some of the longer Avon routes were split up, interworked with one other. Routes 86/87 were cut back to Heswall, whilst the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby was renumbered 88. Routes 77/77A were also cut back to Heswall, with the section of route between Heswall and West Kirby becoming the 82/82A. This had also happened before in August 2012 when routes 12 and 12A were split to become 12 and 93: the route remained unchanged with through journeys still possible.
On 1 September 2015 a new timetable was introduced on many routes and the 22 returned to its pre-September 2012 route.
On 5 September 2016 many of Avon's services were re-routed, cut or new destinations added.
The 22 was extended from West Kirby to Moreton Cross and significantly rerouted to serve
Newton, Greasby, Arrowe Park Hospital and Pensby. The 83 became a three buses a day service in each
direction between Prenton and Liverpool.
Fleet
As of August 2018 the fleet consisted of about 35 buses.
The bulk of the fleet at the end consisted of
Dennis Dart SLF
The Dennis Dart is a Rear-engine design, rear-engined single-decker bus, single-decker midibus chassis that was introduced by Dennis Specialist Vehicles of Guildford, England in 1989, replacing the Dennis Domino. Initially built as a high-floo ...
and
Alexander Dennis Enviro 200 Darts chassis with
Caetano Nimbus,
MCV Evolution
The MCV Evolution (stylised as ''eVolution''; internal designation: MCV C102) is a low floor and low entry single-decker bus body built by Manufacturing Commercial Vehicles. It was unveiled in 2003 as the successor to the MCV Stirling. The MCV ...
and
Plaxton Pointer
The Plaxton Pointer (originally known as the Reeve Burgess Pointer, and later as the TransBus Pointer and Alexander Dennis Pointer) was a single-decker bus body manufactured during the 1990s by Reeve Burgess, Plaxton and latterly built by Alexa ...
2 bodywork. September 2017 saw two former First Essex and Great Yarmouth ALX400 buses joined the fleet doing most School runs and some bus routes usually Monday-Friday
The initial Avon Buses livery was a dark blue with cream. In 1993 the livery became predominantly cream with blue stripes lined in gold. In 1998 the livery evolved again into cream with a blue skirt and black around the windows. A new livery was introduced 2016 with the arrival of five short Enviro200 buses. This livery was white with a blue skirt with the blue raising to the roof towards the rear, broken with a cream sash.
There were very few exceptions to the Avon livery although during the 1990s, some coaches operated in a red livery branded 'Avon Executive' and a Leyland National Greenway carried a Merseytravel livery of yellow, white and black as a dedicated bus for a contract between Heswall and West Kirby.
2017 saw Avon expand operations in the Liverpool area but a driver and vehicle shortage led to many service cancellations and the company at late June 2017 was in a state of crisis with most Merseytravel tendered and commercial services not running. However the crisis appeared to have been resolved by the end of June with most scheduled services running, but during July services were regularly cancelled again. Late August 2017 saw the company's fortunes improve.
Closure
On 5 October 2018, drivers were told that the firm was to cease trading immediately. Issues cited for the closure included rising insurance and fuel costs,
and Merseytravel's MyTicket, a youth ticket that provided unlimited travel for £2 a day. The use of MyTicket led cash-bought tickets on buses to decrease.
Following the closure,
would provide limited services for services 10, 10A and 83A.
Stagecoach Merseyside began running the 22/X22 beginning on 8 October 2018. From 5 November 2018 Stagecoach took over the 16/17 and 80/82 and Eazibus were given the contract to run a new route called the 73.
References
{{Defunct British Bus Companies
1981 establishments in the United Kingdom
Transport companies established in 1981
Former bus operators in Merseyside