(01 Nov 2022, 8:11 pm)Malarkey wrote I read the Darlington MP kicked up a fuss about them not getting due new buses to replace older unreliable buses in Darlington and Arriva then moved them over to keep him happy, personally i'd of told him where to go given they were bought with the Newcastle Emission Zone coming into effect soon and I doubt Arriva will want to buy more new buses anytime soon.

Thing with that is they're not really required with that in mind now since the withdrawal of the 46/46A and changes to the 51 & 55 which are now seemingly allocated full size buses for the most part and the rest of the mini output in the Newcastle area now (553, 555 as examples) don't touch the CAZ so realistically with the changes in mind it seemed inevitable they would be shipped out to somewhere within the Durham County part of the operation, Darlington argubly making most sense given they had the most of the 08/58 plates to offload and at Darlington they can be allocated to all sorts of work and can be used pretty much all day, every day on likes town work and the newly awarded contract to run the X21 between Sedgefield and Peterlee on a night.

I will say however that it is rather poor form that Ashington lost their examples for the 57/57A and are now being replaced with 13 year Solo's, just 2 months after withdrawing examples which were only about a year older which weren't the most reliable. Can sorta see why they decided go go down this route for standardisation etc but its not the greatest look.