Yellow Coaches to Close Again

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As you were watching on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, after I received a tip in the morning from an anonymous source, it has now been confirmed that Yellow Coaches are pulling out of Bournemouth.

It is a story that you will already see on the local Bournemouth Echo, and I was chatting to Paul Clifton at BBC South yesterday about it as well. It all stemmed from a post in the private Facebook group for Yellow Buses (Bournemouth) Enthusiasts – which the Hampshire Bus Update is not a member of because they don’t allow pages to join – and a conversation between members in there.

The XelaGroup Managing Director Gareth Blair joined the conversation with the following post

"Good morning, I can confirm that a decision has been made to remove the operation in Bournemouth. The 18,33,36 BCP contracts were awarded for 6 months and these come to an end in February. Rising costs with the operation and not being successful in securing a good long term accommodation has forced our hand. This isn't a decision we have taken lightly and all staff have been offered work at our Eastleigh location. Yellow Coaches Limited will continue to trade from Eastleigh as a separate coaching unit on a reduced scale." Source

Now here is where the confusion begins.

XelaGroup (Yellow Buses): “Operating costs have dictated the decision to withdraw from the area and schools that have been served will finish on Friday, February 3.”
BCP Council: ““After Yellow Buses collapsed, Xelabus agreed to take over services 18, 33 and 38 for a period of six months until a new longer-term tender for those services was completed. Xelabus will continue operating these services until February 14.”

So it appears that XelaGroup are withdrawing from Bournemouth a fortnight before BCP Council intends them to. We will see what happens on 6 February then, whether any school buses turn up and whether the schools start loudly complaining about a lack of students!

I am not surprised

Way back in August, when Yellow Buses was in imminent collapse and Go South Coast took on the work under an emergency contract; I was surprised when Xelabus took the 6 month tender. This was immediately after they announced they were giving up service work in Eastleigh. It made no sense to me and it felt like an asset stripping operation gone wrong.

I had already by this point lamented about how another local independent had expanded so quickly without notice that it too would struggle. Southampton Mini Link of course, asset stripped Dekkabus and quickly and quietly the Dekka brand and company became a moot point.

Of course, the benefit of Xelabus taking on new work was the glossy in-house arms length publishing unit. They could quickly give an air of a reputable and professional outfit taking over, and I did genuinely hope that they could make a go of it at a massive size disadvantage to morebus.

They have only just released new glossy advertising for a route rebrand for St Peters School in Southbourne. It all looked like it was going well, but clearly the schools work was only good on the back of having three tendered bus services secured from BCP Council.

What Next for Yellow Coaches?

So the business itself it not closing down. One telling thing about the few private contacts I received yesterday about Yellow Coaches was concern that;

• Yellow Coaches Ltd itself was going bust
• The XelaGroup itself was failing

What is actually happening is that the Yellow Coaches Ltd company and assets will be transferred to Eastleigh, presumably at the XelaGroup Barton Park depot. It would not surprise me if some vehicles may be allocated on the Isle of Wight at Seaview Coaches as well as it is another part of the group.

XelaGroup have stated that the Yellow Coaches Ltd entity will be a smaller operation, which I would think long term would become integrated with the XelaCoach brand that occasionally appears. Having multiple pots to spread your eggs in works when part of it becomes a loss-leader and potential debt mountain.

The question would be, why would you have additional expenditure on yellow paint for one coach business, when the other two rely on green.

For now though, buses in Bournemouth cease to be green, or yellow, in a months time.