Arriva Midlands East, is a bus company operating services in

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

. It is a trading division of

Arriva Midlands 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. Arriva Midlands North Operations In September 1981 Midland Red North was formed with 230 bus ...

which is a subsidiary of Arriva plc which is itself owned by the government of Germany through

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the se ...

History

In September 1981 Midland Red East was formed with 181 buses operating from five depots in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

and

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

as part of the breakup of the

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Midland Re ...

bus company, and in January 1984 was renamed Midland Fox.Midland Red Depots
MidlandRed.net In 1987 it was privatised in a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

. Several smaller operators including Loughborough Bus & Coach Company were purchased and in 1989 it was sold to the Drawlane Group. In November 1992 it was sold to

British Bus British Bus was a bus group in the United Kingdom. It was sold to the Cowie Group in August 1996. History British Bus was founded in November 1992 when the Drawlane Transport Group split its bus interests from its National Express in the lead u ...

which in August 1996 was sold to the

Cowie Group Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.Arriva Midlands History
Arriva In September 1996 the Sandacre Street, Leicester depot was closed. In November 1997 the Cowie Group was renamed Arriva and Midland Fox was rebranded as Arriva Fox County. In 2003 Arriva Fox County merged with

Arriva Derby Arriva DerbyCompanies House extract company no 2362274
Arr ...

and Arriva Midland North to form

. On 11 July 2009 the Southgates depot closed and then on 3 October 2011 the Thurmaston depot and head office moved to a new purpose built depot on Westmoreland Avenue. Arriva operated services around the

Hinckley Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council. Hinckley is the third largest settlement in the administrative county of Leicestershire, after Leicester and Loughbor ...

area until August 2008 when the operations were sold to

Centrebus Holdings Team Pennine operates both local and regional bus services in West Yorkshire, England. It is a subsidiary of Transdev Blazefield, which operates bus services across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. History Sta ...

, a joint venture between

Centrebus Centrebus is a bus company based in Leicester operating services in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland. Centrebus have a 51% shareholding in High Peak Buses and since December 2019 through c ...

and Arriva. Arriva regained the Hinckley operations during 2013 when

ended their involvement in Centrebus Holdings and Arriva rebranded the Hinckley operation as Hinckley Bus, During late 2018 Arriva merged the Hinckley Bus services into their Leicestershire operations with the Hinckley Bus name ceasing to exist.

Services

Arriva operate most of their services around Leicester from either

Haymarket Haymarket may refer to: Places Australia * Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia Germany * Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market) Russia * Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...

St Margaret's Bus Station St Margaret's Bus Station is located on Gravel Street to the north of Leicester City Centre, England. It is named after St Margaret's Church, which stands just across Burleys Way. History The use of the site as a bus station dates back to t ...

s with a number of services operating from on-street stops within the city centre. Services around the Coalville area are operated from on-street stops around Marlborough Square and Memorial Square, while local services in Hinckley are operated from Hinckley Bus station located on Waterloo Road.

Depots

Arriva operate from three depots across Leicestershire in

Barwell Barwell is a civil parish and large village in Leicestershire, England, with a population of 8,750 residents, Increasing to 9,022 at the 2011 census, the name literally translates as "Stream of the Boar" and is said to originate from a boar that ...

Coalville Coalville is an industrial town in the district of North West Leicestershire, Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England, with a population at the 2011 census of 34,575. It lies on the A511 trunk road between Leicester and Burton upon Tr ...

, and

Thurmaston Thurmaston is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Leicestershire, England, located within the Borough of Charnwood. At the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census, it had a population of 9,668. It is situated four miles ...

which is the headquarters for

. Until October 2021 there was a fourth depot located in

South Wigston South Wigston is a large village to the south of Leicester, England. It is outside the city boundary, forming part of the Oadby and Wigston district of Leicestershire. The population of the ward rose slightly from 7,471 at the 2001 census to 7,4 ...

but this closed after being open since 1957 with most services being transferred to Thurmaston depot. Until their cessation in July 2022,

ArrivaClick ArrivaClick is a demand responsive transport service operated by Arriva UK Bus. Passengers book and pay for journeys via a smartphone app, which then matches passengers traveling between similar points, calculating an ad hoc route to the destina ...

services around Leicester are based at the Barwell depot.

Fleet

As of June 2022 the fleet consists of 205+ vehicles. Arriva have repainted one of their

DAF DB250 The VDL DB250 (originally the DAF DB250) was a twin-axle double-decker bus chassis manufactured by VDL Bus & Coach. DB250 The DAF DB250 was launched in October 1991 and originally only available with Optare Spectra bodywork with 260 built, mai ...

Wright Pulsar Gemini The Wright Pulsar Gemini was a design of double-decker bus bodywork built onto VDL DB250LF chassis by Wrightbus between 2003 and 2006. It was visually almost identical to the Wright Eclipse Gemini that was mounted on the Volvo B7TL and later ...

's into the Midland Fox livery as a nod to Leicester's heritage during 2019. During 2021

Leicester City Council Leicester City Council is a unitary authority responsible for local government in the city of Leicester, England. It consists of 54 councillors, representing 22 wards in the city, overseen by a directly elected mayor. It is currently control ...

successfully applied for £19 million of funding from the Government's ZEBRA scheme which will see Arriva operating 22 electric double decker buses across services 47/47a/48/48a and 50/51 from mid 2023. https://www.firstbus.co.uk/leicester/news-and-service-updates/news/leicester%E2%80%99s-electric-bus-fleet-top-100-within-three-years

References

External links