Warrington's Own Buses

[knutstransport]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(20/11/2016 17:21)Dentonian Wrote:  If other Operators challenged this through the OFT/CMA, Warrington Council could be in trouble. Due to financial constraints, TFGM award all contracts to the lowest bidder anyway - provided they are on an approved list of Contractors based on basic legal requirements. However, in the past (certainly in GMPTE/ITA days) they were pressurised by the MMC (as was) into not doing this. This is believed to part of the reason Stagecoach suddenly lost a lot of Eve/Sun contracts in Stockport a few years ago. MMC/OFT/CMA don't give a flying c**p about increased fares for passengers. As a public body, TFGM's first loyalty is to the Council tax-payer, not the bus passenger.

They used to win contracts for village services in the Northwich and Knutsford areas by proposing to run them as through services to Warrington which was why villages like Lach Dennis and Lower Peover had direct services to Warrington and why services got reduced significantly when they lost contracts to Tomlinson Travel which then didn't survive. That happened well before the current trend of cutting costs and reportedly was the result of a dispute between Warrington Borough Transport and Cheshire County Council - apparently the operator wanted a higher subsidy to keep the same level of service and the council weren't interested in paying more for providing a service above the minimum level they specified. WBT also never got the Cheshire Show contract after they lost those contracts.

Anyway I wasn't originally asking if Network Warrington automatically got awarded every contract, I was asking if anyone other than Network Warrington had contracts for services in Warrington or if Network Warrington had them all.