Hants & Dorset Motor Services

Hants & Dorset Motor Services Ltd was a stage carriage bus service operator in southern England, between 1920 and 1983.

Early History

The Bournemouth & District Motor Services Ltd was incorporated in 1916. In 1920, a change of name to Hants & Dorset reflected the wider aspirations of its owners. From that year till 1929, not only did Hants & Dorset grow rapidly, it was jointly owned by the two emerging transport groups of the time, British Associated Transport and Tilling.

It was in 1929 that the Southern Railway took up its option to buy shares, under the terms of the Road & Rail Transport Act 1928, when the "Big Four" rail operators (including Southern) were able to invest in bus operators.

By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the network of Hants & Dorset bus services was largely complete. Hants & Dorset operated buses in Bournemouth, Poole, Southampton, Lymington, Fareham and Winchester. Hants & Dorset replaced the trams operated by Poole Corporation, in 1934.

Nationalisation

The railway's half-share in Hants & Dorset ensured the bus operator's state control in 1948 under the Transport Holding Company, following the post-war Labour government's strongly pro-nationalisation agenda, which included the assent of the Transport Act 1947.

Common Management & Merger

The THC's successor inspired a reorganisation in 1964 that saw Hants & Dorset and northern neighbour Wilts & Dorset fall under common management, at Hants & Dorset’s head office in Bournemouth.

A year earlier, Wilts & Dorset had taken over a large independent, Silver Star of Porton Down and in 1950, as part of the THC’s early rationalisation, Wilts & Dorset took over the Basingstoke operator Venture, which had previously passed to the Red & White group five years earlier and which, following Red & White’s voluntary nationalisation, had in turn passed to the THC.

Upon both Hants & Dorset and Wilts & Dorset passing to the National Bus Company in 1969, following Labour's Transport Act 1968, the operators merged in 1972, under the Hants & Dorset name and management. Rather than Hants & Dorset's green, the enlarged operation adopted a fleet livery of National poppy red, similar to Wilts & Dorset's. The new operation covered routes from Pewsey in the north, Poole to Fareham in the south, Basingstoke in the east and Shaftesbury & Warminster in the west.

A year later, the substantial Winchester operator R Chisnell & Sons (t/a King Alfred) passed to Hants & Dorset, including an eclectic mix of vehicles, most of which were withdrawn from service as non-standard. Chisnell had operated Winchester city services plus a country service to Basingstoke.

Hants & Dorset took over the services operated by Western National in Swanage in 1974.

Hants & Dorset had a reputation among National Bus Company subsidiaries as somewhat loss making. While routes in the Poole-Bournemouth, Southampton, Basingstoke and Salisbury areas made reasonable returns, those elsewhere were weaker. The impact of the private car throughout the 1960s and 1970s plus successive withdrawals and fares revisions further weakened what had now become marginal rural services.

Provincial

The National Bus Company acquired the Gosport & Fareham Omnibus Co Ltd (trading as Provincial) in 1970. It passed under the head office control of Hants & Dorset but Provincial remained a separate entity, in part under its own control, owing to the terms of an 1878 Act under which it was established. Provincial retained a green livery.

Market Analysis

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, in order to match supply and demand without undue cross subsidy, Hants & Dorset like other NBC subsidiaries embarked on a number of Market Analysis Projects. It helped identify viable networks to which the local authorities concerned, which by now not only had the power to subsidise bus services but were actually facing resultant financial constraints, could subsidise additional mileage.

MAP, as it was known, emerged from the Midland Red company in 1977 and was applied throughout Hants & Dorset's territory, culminating in redrafted timetables and an attempt at fostering local support through the use of sub-brands identifiable to specific, local markets. These were:

South Wessex (Poole/Bournemouth/Lymington)Winton Line (Winchester)Venture (Basingstoke)South Hants (Southampton)New Provincial/Provincial Joint Services (Hants & Dorset Fareham and Gosport & Fareham operations)

Depots

At its height, Hants & Dorset operated from garages at Andover, Basingstoke, Blandford Forum, Bournemouth, Eastleigh, Fareham, Lymington, Pewsey, Poole, Ringwood, Salisbury, Southampton, Swanage and Winchester.

End of the Road

In the early- to mid-1980s, the National Bus Company, with an eye to the future, began disintegrating its larger operating subsidiaries, of which Hants & Dorset was one. The idea was the formation of units that could better serve their local markets, although later splits were to ensure a successful privatisation.

So it was, in 1983, that Hants & Dorset Motor Services Ltd was wound up, its three operating successors either introducing or re-introducing new company names where once Hants & Dorset had dominated. The head office offered company secretarial support, for a time.

There re-emerged the name Wilts & Dorset, albeit with a significantly different operating area than the old company (from 1983, covering Bournemouth, Poole, Lymington, Salisbury, with a head office remaining at Bournemouth). Wilts & Dorset was sold to its management in 1987 and bought by the Go-Ahead Group in 2003.

Recognising the increasing level of joint working, Hants & Dorset's Fareham activities merged with the Gosport & Fareham undertaking, under the Provincial name, trading from Hoeford, Gosport, all but closing the former Hants & Dorset Fareham garage, other than for storage. Provincial was acquired by First Group as First Provincial, then merged into First Hampshire & Dorset in 2003.

Finally, the former Hants & Dorset operations in Basingstoke, Winchester & Southampton became Hampshire Bus, whose head office was at Eastleigh. Of the three, Hampshire Bus was the weakest, yet this was one of the first companies to sell under the privatisation of the National Bus Company, in 1986. It was acquired by Stagecoach, but in 1987 Stagecoach sold the Southampton area operations to Solent Blue Line (itself acquired by the Go-Ahead Group in 2005). Stagecoach retains the Winchester, Andover and Basingstoke operations.

Though it has disappeared as a trading name, the Hants & Dorset Motor Services Ltd name survives as the registered, legal name of Damory Coaches, a subsidiary of Wilts & Dorset.

Trivia

*The Hants & Dorset company was affectionately known as "Pants & Corset".
*The company operated from the higher level of a unique two-tier bus & coach station in Bournemouth, dating from 1930. Having been rebuilt in the 1950s, it was rendered unsafe following a fire in 1976, and demolished and replaced with a car park in the early 1980s.