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I do think Stagecoach would of been in Merseyside anyway but not in Gillmoss

Gillmoss would have been the only depot worth taking as arriva control the rest. The remaining firms would not have been worth the effort to them with most work being tendered. So SC would probably not have made it to merseyside until the first takeover had things been different.

Just think if Arriva had been told to divest Speke not gillmoss .

Remember being told in about 1996 that MTL had put an offer in for Nottingham City Transport but the deal fell through because the Trust were not prepared to include NCT employees pro rata in the share scheme. Shame really because MTL had the opportunity of joining the big boys properly if they had naturally grown with steady expansion on the bus side of the business.

Merseyrail was not the problem for MTL but Northern Spirit was bleeding money- proven by the fact the Labour government who took it back to re-franchise split into separate units. Northern Spirit was far too big to chew and the subsidies for it were woefully inadequate.

Don't forget MTL were trying to prepare for a flotation on the Stock Exchange late 1998ish so would things be much different once outside forces came play? The outside shareholders then would have demanded a return from their money.

The Northern Spirit and then Northern has always been a thorn that has been hard to handle , the Governments of both Labour and the present coalition have always found it hard to sort out its ills which is too many passengers and not enough trains to really operate properly.

We would probably still have Skelmersdale depot here, 2 of the 3 garages that serve Skem now are ex MTL

(24/02/2015 14:16)skelmersey Wrote: [ -> ]We would probably still have Skelmersdale depot here, 2 of the 3 garages that serve Skem now are ex MTL

There is no way of knowing what bus operations across Merseyside would now look like if Arriva had not bought out MTL. When deregulation occurred in 1986 the new company, Merseybus, immediately closed Litherland, PAR and Garston depots in Liverpool and Seaview Road on the Wirral. A few years later Edge Lane and Walton were also closed. Ribble rationalised its depots with the closure of Aintree, Skelhorne Street, Southport and its out-station at Ormskirk and Crosville ceased to exist. For better or worse, Arriva simply continued the business plan its predecessors had started in an effort to cut costs and increase profitability.

(25/02/2015 09:48)Barney Wrote: [ -> ]There is no way of knowing what bus operations across Merseyside would now look like if Arriva had not bought out MTL. When deregulation occurred in 1986 the new company, Merseybus, immediately closed Litherland, PAR and Garston depots in Liverpool and Seaview Road on the Wirral. A few years later Edge Lane and Walton were also closed. Ribble rationalised its depots with the closure of Aintree, Skelhorne Street, Southport and its out-station at Ormskirk and Crosville ceased to exist. For better or worse, Arriva simply continued the business plan its predecessors had started in an effort to cut costs and increase profitability.

Crosville didnt cease to exist it just downsized to the Wirral and Chester . Rock Ferry and chester the ever presents , with fortunes alternating between West Kirby and Heswall before both ceased to exist , eventually becoming a pub at Heswall and Housing at West Kirby.

(25/02/2015 09:48)Barney Wrote: [ -> ]There is no way of knowing what bus operations across Merseyside would now look like if Arriva had not bought out MTL. When deregulation occurred in 1986 the new company, Merseybus, immediately closed Litherland, PAR and Garston depots in Liverpool and Seaview Road on the Wirral. A few years later Edge Lane and Walton were also closed. Ribble rationalised its depots with the closure of Aintree, Skelhorne Street, Southport and its out-station at Ormskirk and Crosville ceased to exist. For better or worse, Arriva simply continued the business plan its predecessors had started in an effort to cut costs and increase profitability.

I understand what you say Barney but I was just making the point that had Arriva not taken over MTL they would have struggled to serve Skelmersdale with just Bootle garage. Also I cannot remember an out station at Ormskirk, as far as I remember Ormskirk closed when Skem opened in 1974.

(25/02/2015 14:12)wirralbus Wrote: [ -> ]Crosville didnt cease to exist it just downsized to the Wirral and Chester . Rock Ferry and chester the ever presents , with fortunes alternating between West Kirby and Heswall before both ceased to exist , eventually becoming a pub at Heswall and Housing at West Kirby.

I am not sure exactly when First took over the former Crosville operations (in the 1990s?), but when it did Crosville ceased to exist. Once downsizing has been adopted as the business plan, closure invariably follows and that has been the pattern in bus operations for the past 30 years. The only good thing to come out of the 1985 Act was it ensured that a private - as opposed to a state - national monopoly could not be achieved.