(06 Feb 2019, 1:44 pm)S813 FVK wrote In Martijn Gilbert's tweet welcoming the news, he did make the point of including both Newcastle and Gateshead within it
https://twitter.com/MartijnGNE/status/10...93856?s=20

53/54 initially jumped out at me, but like a few other suggestions put forward, this only has a PVR of 8 and the proposition of an electric bus sitting around in the depot all day because the 'main' 8 are operational doesn't sound too good. Having said that, I'm sure they would find a route to allocate the spare bus to when not required to cover on the main routes.

I hadn't seen that tweet, but remembered discussion in the past regarding bids and the clean air schemes. 

Having a spare does make sense, particularly if they're justifying the business case, by being able to maintain the PVR and correct allocation.