Glenvale Transport

Infobox Defunct Company
company_name = Glenvale Transport Ltd
company_


slogan =
fate = Buyout
successor = Stagecoach Merseyside
foundation = 2001
defunct = 2005
location = Merseyside
industry = Transport
products = Bus transport

Glenvale Transport Ltd was a bus company formed in 2001 due to response by the Competition Commission that Arriva's dominance in Merseyside bus transport exceeded a reasonable share and therefore another bus company to compete with Arriva must enter the Merseyside market to retain competition among bus operators.

History

In February 2000 Merseyside's largest bus operator MTL Trust Holdings Ltd was acquired by Arriva Passenger Services plc. The Cowie Group plc (Arriva) had acquired the North Western Road Car Company Ltd which had been part of British Bus Ltd in the summer of 1994. In turn North Western had gained substantial parts of the former Crosville and Ribble operations and acquired or created other companies - most notably Amberline, City Plus and Liverline in Liverpool, Beeline Buzz Company and Star Line Travel in Greater Manchester, Dee Line, Leigh Line, Little White Buses in West Lancashire, Runcorn Busways, South Lancashire Transport in St Helens, Warrington Gold Line and Wigan Bus. By the year 2000 Arriva North West Ltd (North Western) had built up a substantial presence in many parts Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and West Lancashire and given the acquisition and subsequent merger of the former MTL companies now known as Arriva Merseyside Ltd into Arriva North West Ltd it gave Arriva an extremely dominant position on Merseyside and in Liverpool in particular.

It was perhaps not surprising that the Competition Commission ruled that as a condition of the sale of MTL to Arriva and to preserve competition within the Merseyside bus market - Aintree based CMT Buses - see later, was the only major competitor in Liverpool at that time, Arriva had to divest one of the former MTL garages to a new buyer within one year and not compete with that buyer for a period of three years. The bus corridors of South/East Liverpool tended to be more luccrative and have more competition than those to the North of Liverpool and it was Liverpool's Gillmoss depot on the East Lancashire Road that Arriva sacrificed but sale of Gillmoss would turn out to be a rather protracted process. Its most profitable routes - 12/13 (Stockbridge Village Circular - Liverpool), 14 (Croxteth - Liverpool) and 53/55 (Thornton/Old Roan - Liverpool) were allowed to remain with Arriva Merseyside/North West and were transferred to its Green Lane and Bootle depots. It's unknown whether this detterred prospective buyers but an early front runner did emerge in the form of Go-Ahead Group plc who considered Gillmoss as having similar characteristics to its Go North East operation and therefore almost came to an agreement to buy Gillmoss towards the beginning of 2001. However at the 11th hour Go-Ahead pulled out of the deal opting instead to acquire Arriva Croydon & North Surrey Ltd as it had more strategic fit with its Metrobus subsidiary in Surrey and West Sussex.

Arriva was having trouble selling Gillmoss and put a proposal to the Competition Commission to re-invest in Gillmoss if it were allowed to keep to depot. The Competition Commission denied Arriva this option and the search for a buyer continued. In the Spring/Summer of 2001 a number of bids started emerge. The first of these came from Merseyside's largest independent operator CMT Buses who were most likely looking to strengthen their position on Merseyside. The second bidder was London's Metroline parent company Singapore-based DelGro Corporation and the third was an unknown consortium which at the time was shrouded in mystery and years later was known to have come from Stagecoach Holdings plc. However a fourth bid emerged fronted by ex-MTL managers Dominic Brady and Ian Campbell. This was Glenvale Transport Ltd/(GTL) and it successfully acquired Gillmoss and took over from Arriva in July 2001.

Formation

The protracted sale of Gillmoss did lead to poor staff morale, compounded by Arriva using Gillmoss as a dumping ground for the remaining ex-London Buses Leyland Titans that Merseybus/MTL had been acquiring since the end of 1992. Gillmoss did have a modern fleet of 25 Volvo Olympian/Northern Counties Palatine II that Liverbus (3) and Merseybus/MTL North (22) had bought new in 1995 and 1998 respectively and had been dubbed The Millennium Fleet. However GTL decided to not take up the leasing arrangements for these vehicles and instead they were passed over to Arriva Merseyside who transferred them mostly to the Speke and Green Lane depots in Liverpool along with a handful for the Laird Street depot in Birkenhead. In return around 30 MCW Metrobuses which were more than 20 years old came in from the former Arriva Croydon & North Surrey operation and had been refurbished for that operation in 1999. MTL's cream and crimson livery was retained and given Arriva couldn't compete with GTL's core route network in North Liverpool and Kirkby for three years (see above) GTL decided to exploit this advantage and the next 18 months saw GTL rapidly expanding its route network throughout much of Merseyside. GTL promised investment in new vehicles for Gillmoss, however this never materialised. Instead further ex-London vehicles in the form of another large batch of Leyland Titans, along with Reeve Burgess/Plaxton Pointer-bodied Dennis Darts and a smaller batch of Metrobuses (some of which briefly operated in the liveries of their former owners Blue Triangle, London Central/General, Metroline and Stagecoach East London/Selkent) were acquired and at its peak GTL acquired a fleet of around 120 Titans and 60 Metrobuses. By 2002 Arriva had invested in approximately 200 new low floor, wheelchair accessible vehicles for its Merseyside operation clearing out the Leyland Atlantean/Alexander ALs and Leyland Titans which had been mainstays of the MTL fleet. GTL's newest vehicles were a batch of 11 Dennis Dart SLF/Marshall Capitals [http://stagecoachmerseyside.tripod.com/ Stagecoach Merseyside - History] StagecoachMerseyside.tripod.com] - which were the last batch of vehicles to be purchased new by MTL in 1999, and 8 1997 vintage Dennis Dart SLF/East Lancs Sprytes acquired second hand from Speke based Express Travel in 2002. Furthermore these vehicles only usually operated Merseytravel contracts. In turn a significant amount of the GTL fleet was approaching 25 years of age and given GTL had higher farescales than Arriva Merseyside and CMT Buses it gave GTL a more unfavourable impression in the eyes of Merseyside's bus users. In order to survive, GTL had to consolidate its position within Merseyside's bus market. The only remaining opportunity for GTL to do this was Aintree-based CMT Buses and it was perhaps unsurprising that GTL acquired CMT Buses.

CMT Buses

History

CMT Buses was formed from C&M Travel Ltd who were a long established coach hire operator in the Merseyside area. After deregulation CMT gained a foothold into bus operation by winning Merseytravel contracts and by the late 1980s had begun a commercial service network on the Wirral. Between 1991 and 1994 the company turned its focus to the Liverpool bus market which was already a hotbed of intense competition between Merseybus/MTL, City Fleet, Fareway, Liverline, Liverbus, Halton Transport, Merseyline, North Western, Village Group and GM Buses (North/South). The coach hire and Wirral based services were discontinued and a significant number of new services on many of Liverpool's most lucrative bus corridors were started by CMT with a large fleet of Leyland Nationals. These were very successful and sparked a bus war in Liverpool which led to a period of consolidation in which MTL acquired Fareway, Liverbus and Village Group, North Western acquiring Liverline, GM Buses North/South withdrawing from Merseyside and MTL, North Western, CMT Buses, GM Buses North/South and Halton Transport enter into a controversial agreement which limited competition between these parties in the North West bus market, controlled fares and a Competition Commission investigation which ruled this was illegal and fined the parties involved.

Despite this, CMT Buses was a successful player within the Merseyside bus market and from the Summer of 1995 to the Summer of 2002, it gradually began adding substantial numbers of new vehicles to its fleet including Volvo B10B/Wright Endurance, Volvo B10L/Wright Liberator, Volvo B10BLE/Wright Renown, Dennis Dart/Northern Counties Paladin, Dennis Dart SLF/Wright Crusader and Dennis Dart SLF/Plaxton Pointer SPDs, along with relatively modern second hand acquisitions like Volvo B10B/Alexander Strider from Blazefield-owned Harrogate & District and Leyland Lynxes from a variety of sources to replace the aging Leyland Nationals.

Acquisition

Towards the end of 1998, CMT acquired Formby-based independent "ABC Travel" which had substantial contracts for Merseytravel services and a modern fleet of mainly Optare products including MetroRiders, Deltas, Excels and Solos. Merseytravel contractor L&M Transport/Greenbus, which it was rumoured CMT Buses had an interest, was integrated into CMT around 2001 and the operations centred upon the CMT base in Aintree. Arguably CMT Buses was an attractive target for prospective purchasers and it's rumoured that both MTL and Arriva had a view to acquire CMT at some point and time. However on 15th June 2003 it would be GTL who'd acquire the CMT operation further consolidating GTL's position within the Merseyside bus market, expanding the fleet to approximately 290 vehicles and adding CMT's Aintree [http://www.dartslf.com/news/archive/archivenews026.asp Merseyside Dennis Dart - Archive 26] Merseyside Dennis Dart] garage to that at Gillmoss.

Glenvale's expansion

The acquisition of CMT Buses enabled GTL to become Merseyside's second largest bus operator behind Arriva. Initially GTL kept CMT Buses as a separate entity maintaining their all over bright red livery and yellow CMT Buses/liver bird logos along with CMT's route network some of which duplicated those of GTL.

However in October 2003 management of the Aintree depot was passed over to GTL's management team and service network rationalised to create strategic fit with those of GTL. New blue 'GTL' logos were applied to the CMT vehicles and GTL adopted a darker all over red livery to replace the ex-MTL cream/crimson livery. There was again talk of investment in new vehicles along with possible expansion on Merseyside (opening a depot in the Speke area to compete directly with Arriva's South Liverpool services) and beyond.

A possible network of services on the Wirral along with rumours of GTL acquiring First Cheshire & Wirral's depot at Rock Ferry and a move into London Buses tendered contracts - Dominic Brady and Ian Campbell were part of MTL London's management team, along with an Alternative Investments listing on the London Stock Exchange as a means for GTL to raise funds for investment. However GTL achieved none of this and by the end of 2003 it was still perceived by many within the bus industry as a small Merseyside-based operator with a rapidly aging fleet of ex-London double deckers - even after the CMT Buses acquisition, with high fares and poor staff morale a hang over of the original acquisition of Gillmoss from Arriva.

Fleet Investment

Despite this, GTL used Essex-based Ensign Bus to modernise the fleet and from late 2003 to the Spring of 2005 approximately 94 Volvo B6/Dennis Dart with Alexander Dash bodywork - ironically coming from various companies within the Stagecoach Group, along with smaller batches of Dennis Dart/Wright Handybus from Go North East and ex-Metroline Dennis Dart/Northern Counties Paladin - once part of the fleet at MTL London, came in. However these vehicles were 9-12 years old and not the new vehicles GTL constantly promised. Furthermore two significant events ultimately sealed the fate for GTL's long term future.

Arriva Competition

By autumn 2004, the Competition Commission ban on Arriva competing against GTL in Kirkby and North Liverpool was over. In response to significant expansion by GTL throughout Merseyside, Arriva registered high frequency copycat services over much of the GTL network in Kirkby and North Liverpool including 2 (Kirkby Northwood-Liverpool), 14A/B (Kirkby Tower Hill-Liverpool), 17 (Fazakerley Hospital-Liverpool), 19 (Fazakerley Lower Lane-Liverpool), 20 (Skelmersdale-Kirkby-Liverpool).

These services mostly used modern low-floor easy access vehicles and gave Arriva a competitive advantage over GTL's aging, step entrance vehicles further reinforcing a mostly negative impression in the eyes of Merseyside's bus users of GTL in comparison to that of Arriva; whether as a consequence of these or other events, there was always a general air of uncertainty and short-termism with GTL.

Decline

GTL never bought any new vehicles, despite promises on numerous occasions in significant reinvestment in its fleet. Despite GTL's core routes in Kirkby and North Liverpool being considered as lucrative, profitable bus territory, GTL had an annual turnover of approximately £25m. Furthermore, levels of car ownership where relatively low, with significant declines in patronage with GTL's aging and generally down at heel fleet being considered a major reason for this decline. Many observers of the Merseyside and the bus scene in general considered GTL to have expanded too much, too fast and simply competing with Arriva for competition's sake.

In hindsight this may have been an unwise move and when Arriva could compete with GTL on their 'bread and butter' services in Kirkby and North Liverpool it was perhaps unsurprising that by March 2005 GTL had run up debts of approximately £7m and was rumoured to be struggling to pay its bills and staff wages. GTL was therefore on the market and out of all the potential purchasers the ultimate buyer was perhaps the most surprising.

A final event of note for GTL was ex-Stagecoach East Midlands Volvo B6/Alexander Dash (7282/L448LWE) had a starring role in the successful Liverpool FC UEFA Champion's League homecoming on 26th May 2005. After becoming stranded in the vast crowd of people on Lime Street some Liverpool fans used 7282's roof as a vantage point to see Liverpool's open top bus parade in the city centre. Apart from a few small dents to the roof no damage was caused to the vehicle.

Fate

On numerous occasions, rival transport operator Stagecoach had made bids for some or all of the companies making up the former MTL Trust Holdings Ltd group. Rumours where circulating that GTL was looking for a buyer, and after several bids by other companies, GTL accepted a reported £3.4M cash on 13 July 2005 by Stagecoach [http://www.dartslf.com/news/archive/archivenews019.asp Merseyside Dennis Dart - Archive 19] ] , an offer which also agreed to absorb GTL's debt of approximately £7m.

ee also

* MTL Trust Holdings Ltd
* Stagecoach Merseyside

References