Glossopdale Bus Company

Glossopdale Bus Company began operations in 1991, with a one vehicle, two route service around Glossop, Derbyshire, England. The founder of the business, David Whyatt, secured start-up funding from the Prince's Trust, which allowed the purchase of the first bus.

The business was awarded a contract by Derbyshire County Council in October 1992 to operate the 361 service between Glossop and Stockport, and in the same month won the BBC Radio 4 / Radio Times Enterprise 92 award for best small business in the UK. In 1995, Glossopdale took over the operations of Tame Valley Motor Services, founded by the late Patrick Keeley, and commenced services in Greater Manchester, with the 375 service between Tameside Hospital and Bosden Farm.

A subsidiary operation, Galloway Bus Company, was established in 1995 with grant assistance from the Scottish Office. A two-hourly service was launched between the towns of Port William and Kirkudbright, but operated only for a few months and was not able to generate sufficient travel to become self-funding.

In 1996 the company became one of the launch customers for the ill-fated Marshall Minibus, an early low floor midi-sized vehicle designed and built by Marshall of Cambridge. The four vehicles owned by Glossopdale had an appalling performance record, often all four being out of service due to various mechanical and structural defects. This created a heavy burden for such a small operator. Eventually Glossopdale sued Marshall in the High Court, with the manufacturer admitting defeat shortly before the hearing was due. Marshall re-purchased the vehicles and compensated Glossopdale for its' ordeal.

A further takeover was completed in 1996 with the acquisition of the contracts of Checkmate of Mossley, owned by the late Sam Tandy. This added the 352 service between Denshaw and Ashton to the Glossopdale network.

By 1998 the company was operating a fleet of twenty five buses and employed forty five people. The officers of the company were: David Whyatt (b.1965) Managing Director, Robert Farrell (1950-2007) Finance Director, Jack Hampson (b.1953) Director and General Manager.

In 1999 the company was sold to Stagecoach Manchester and its operations were absorbed into their network. Glossopdale Bus Company can be seen as the pre-cursor to Speedwellbus which was created by Jack Hampson and David Whyatt several years afterwards.