The on and off saga of who is going to run the annual bus service to the Marwell Wildlife Park (remember, it’s not a zoo) has finally been answered as a timetable has now appeared.
If you remember, First Bus have been running it for many years, before that it was Xelabus, and before that it was (Black) Velvet. This year, it was originally announced that Simon Gard’s operation Southampton Mini Link was going to take the baton with a specially livered bus.
The thing is, despite negotiating a tender and publishing a timetable on the Southampton Mini Link website ( we reported it a few months back ) suddenly the deal was off. Simon commented on Facebook that his supported service was not going to happen as another operator was going to now run a competing service commercially. I said it was probably the quickest cancellation in history.
A service registration did appear a little while ago and now the timetable is out.
The timetable is pretty similar to previous years, not surprisingly. I wonder if that will become the domain of one of the ex-Bristol Streetdecks in the summer?
I think Marwell have rebranded back to “Marwell Zoo”, as that’s what they refer to themselves as on their website.
I wonder how much they paid someone to come up with that re-brand?
I think Marwell have rebranded back to “Marwell Zoo”, as that’s what they refer to themselves as on their website.