I would love to see a great deal of investment in SNE this year as i believe its the 3rd highest profitable subsidiary after London and Manchester, but i do fear after Covid and losses  I think it would be wishful thinking for entirely new vehicles to turn up.

I would say if around 15 Enviro 200s could be sourced- ideally anything after 2013/2014 years as models after these years seem to have less problems than the current batches currently in the northeast, this would allow the most problematic of the 2008 examples the majority i believe are at hartlepool to be took out of service and used as spare parts, a lack of which i believe has been a cause of some problems.

i would also say if around 20-25 single decks could be sourced, again anything after 2013 model enviros or at a pinch later years ALX 300s as these are still mostly going strong albeit totally unsuitable for the clean air zone coming into affect some point. ideally if if newer enviros i would say use ten to oust some of the 200s found at slatyford again freeing up some of the problematic members of the batches to be used for spare parts. the other 15 use to remove the 1st GEN enviro 300s at Stockton out of service, the SP08 batch of 300s initially procured as 100 buses and to remove some of the ALXs from service.

as for double decker's i would say if around 25-30 vehicles, anything newer than 2012 examples to do the following, 

the first 10 would allow the 4 hired in Volvos to go off lease and also  replace 19439 which was fire damaged. also ousting the final 5 2007 registered examples

i would then say a second batch of ten could be split between sunderland which could allow for more capacity on X24 and the E services potentially  cascading 5 newer single deckers to slatyford which in turn if they also received 5 double decks could allow around ten older single decks to be either removed from service or used to relieve fleet shortages particularly at south shields or hartlepool.

finally a third batch of ten would allow the more problematic members of 2008 registered examples to be ousted