New Enterprise Coaches

A New Enterprise coach, 2054 (M54 AWW), a Scania K113CRB coach with a Van Hool Alizée HE-II body

Another Van Hool, 2831, an Alizée H.

New Enterprise Coaches is an English bus and coach company, based in Tonbridge, Kent. It is an arm of Arriva Southern Counties Ltd, itself a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn of Germany.

History

The company started in 1974 as a small West Kent-based family-run business.

In the early 1980s New Enterprise started running local bus services in the Tonbridge area, mainly competing against Maidstone & District, which eventually bought the company in June 1988. In 1997, British Bus - the company that owned Maidstone and District - was bought by Arriva.

Unlike many of Arriva's acquisitions which have adopted a corporate livery of all-over aquamarine with a champagne scoop at the front and yellow coachline along the skirt, New Enterprise retains its all-over white with red and blue ribbon livery on their coaches, and white, blue and red standard livery on their service buses. However, buses are sometimes seen in service in Arriva corporate livery prior to being repainted, or when they are on loan.

Discontinued operations

New Enterprise operated commuter services 781 and 784 to London from the Maidstone area out of Arriva's Maidstone Depot, which were inherited from Green Line in August 2005. However this service was withdrawn from 19 January 2009, replaced by an alternative service provided by Chalkwell Coaches of Sittingbourne.

From 18 March 2008, New Enterprise began to run the new EB3 easyBus service from Gatwick Airport to London Victoria, using a fleet of Mercedes-Benz Sprinter/Optare Soroco. A new outstation at Gatwick was opened for this operation. While the new vehicles are awaited, some older easyBus minibuses were on loan from Arriva Shires & Essex. Route EB3 was replaced by route EB4 (introduced in August 2008) from Gatwick Airport to Fulham Broadway in Central West London, with the EB3 eventually stopping on 21 September 2008. From early 2009, the Gatwick base was moved into Tellings-Golden Miller's (also owned by Arriva) Gatwick depot. The operation by New Enterprise was discontinued in late 2009, when Easybus took this and other similar sub-contracted routes 'in-house', from a base in London NW10.

Current operations

New Enterprise now operates a number of local bus services in the Tonbridge and Sevenoaks areas under contract to Kent County Council from their Tonbridge base. They also offer a wide range of daybreaks and holidays from the Tonbridge and Maidstone areas, as well as coach hire with a choice of coaches from 49 to 53 seaters.

Routes operated

Route Number	From	To	Notes
7	Tonbridge	Hadlow	College Days only
200	Hildenborough	Hildenborough Station	Monday to Friday peak hours
204	Tonbridge	Underriver	Saturdays only
210	Tonbridge	Charcott	Saturdays only
211	Tonbridge Castle	Tonbridge Cottage Hospital.
522	Seal	Tonbridge	Schooldays only
532	Kemsing	Tonbridge	Schooldays only
540	Sundridge	Hugh Christie Tech. College	Schooldays only
541	Larkfield	Hugh Christie Tech. College	Schooldays only
542	Leybourne	Hugh Christie Tech. College	Schooldays only
543	Chipstead Corner	Hugh Christie Tech. College	Schooldays only
544	Sevenoaks	Hugh Cgristie Tech. College	Schooldays only
552	Badgers Mount	Tonbridge	Schooldays only
572	Hildenborough	Tonbridge	Schooldays only
577	West Malling	Tonbridge, Weald of Kent School	Schooldays only

Current fleet

Maidstone Arriva depot

• 2 Volvo B7R / Plaxton Profile
• 1 DAF SB3000 / Plaxton Prima

Tonbridge depot

• 1 Mercedes-Benz 711D/Plaxton Beaver
• 1 Kassbohrer Setra / Kassbohrer
• 1 Volvo B10M / Caetano Enigma
• 1 Transbus Javelin / Plaxton Profile
• 6 DAF SB3000 / Plaxton Prima
• 4 DAF SB3000 / Van Hool Alizée
• 1 DAF SB3000 / Ikarus Blue Danube
• 1 DAF MB230 / Van Hool Alizée
• 2 Dennis Dart SLF / East Lancs Spryte
• 2 Volvo B6 / Plaxton Pointer
• 3 Leyland Olympian / Leyland

External links

• Official website
• Traveline website, UK public transport information
• Kent County Council's public transport website
• ADGroup - New Enterprise Coaches photos